A Better Mix
by StitchAndRepair
Summary: Sequel to Jack & Orange
1. Chapter 1

"You're cracked if you think that O'Connor is going to win" Jack protests, eyebrows raised in disbelief "He's a fuckin' asshole"

"O'Connor is a badass" Mick corrects, gesturing wildly towards the TV as smoke from his cigarette swirls into clouds around the two of them, "He's going to destroy Costello. He's the best defender they got"

Thursday nights in the Milkovich household have, over the years, become boys' night. Which usually means that Jack and Mickey end up sprawled in front of the TV with a takeout pizza and too many snacks, drinking beer and watching whatever sports game is on the TV that night, usually followed by Mandy crashing in on them and turning it over to some bullshit TV show about teenage girls with newborns. Tonight, however, they've so far managed to avoid the screaming cries of babies on the TV. Instead, it's football.

"Bullshit dad" Jack presses his tongue into the corner of his mouth, a habit picked up from years of following his dad around with the childish belief that his dad is a superhero. A belief that - despite things such as puberty and the loss of childish innocence - never seemed to diminish, "what about Cottrell, huh? THAT dude is badass"

"Cottrell? I" Mickey shakes his head, eyes raking over his son who is suddenly fourteen and filled with attitude, his attitude, and opinions that he makes on his own and he's suddenly tall and grown up and Mickey doesn't know how it's all gone by so quickly, "…alright, I'll give you that. He's pretty good. But O'Connor is going to score the winning point. He's a finisher"

"But Cottrell's got the ability to-" Jack starts,

"Shut up, dorks" Mandy cuts in with a ladylike snort as she walks into the living room, holding out two beers for them, the bottles sweating from the sudden warmth after being pulled fresh from the cold fridge, "plus have you seen Frederick's ass?" she smiles down at Jack and Mickey rolls his eyes, "He's only gotta flex that thing and they'll all fall at his feet. He could win on that ass alone"

"Shut up Mand" Jack replies flatly, pulling the beer from his aunt's fingers "this is man time"

"Man time?" she asks with her eyebrows raised "You're fourteen, Asshat"

She cups his chin between the thumb and fingers of her right hand, sees as he flinches from the cold still on them from the beer, and she screws her face up at him as his lips twitch with the urge to smile. He, instead, rolls his tongue out of his mouth at her, his eyes void of emotion like a mask and all she can see is her brother, six years old and pulling the exact same face. She scrunches her nose up, shakes her wrist, his chin moving with it until the expression falls from his face and is replaced with a smirk, "you look so much like your father when you pull that face, poor kid"

"Ay don't you have somewhere to go?" Mickey interrupts rudely and Mandy just rolls her head towards him, lips pursed as she straightens up and Mickey doesn't have to see the roll of her eyes in order to know that that's what is implied in her tone as she says,

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going"

Jack smiles up at her, his head falling back against the top of the sofa as she moves behind him to the door "Later aunt Mand"

"Later little Jack" she leans forward and kisses his hair, ruffling his bangs as he pulls away and scrunches up his face at the show of affection, because didn't she know that he was far too old for all that now? She laughs under her breath before raising her hand in a wave to Mickey, which he didn't return, and leaving through the front door.

"She got another date with uncle Gallagher's brother?" Jack asks as the echo of the front door slamming closed lingers around them,

"You're not supposed to know about that" Mickey answers around the cigarette in his mouth, blowing smoke away from Jack,

"Right?" Jack scoffs, "cause that stupid smile on her face doesn't say everything?"

"They're taking things slow or some shit" Mickey belches, hitting his fist against his chest, "Don't know why she's going back there"

"They went out before right?" Jack asks through a mouthful of beer, his jaw arched to stop the liquid from spilling out of his mouth,

"Yeah - years ago" Mickey replies, watching as a dribble of beer trails a path down Jack's chin and he fights the urge to rub it away with the palm of his hand, reminds himself that his son isn't four years old anymore and he can clean up his own messes, "back when they were a bit older than you"

"What's he like?" He finally swallows, his eye flicking between his dad and the game on screen. A flash of blue and red spills onto the green grass on screen as the players fall into a puddle on the floor, one on top of the other like a doggy pile, all aiming for the ball, all wanting the same thing. Jack sniffs loudly, temporarily drowning out the noise coming from the screen. He turns his head back towards his dad and raises his eyebrows expectantly,

"A jackass" Mickey replies bluntly and Jack just quirks his lips in a twisted, amused smile, like he never expected any other reply,

"So why's she going back?"

Mickey waits a beat, pulling at the fabric of his sweats as they ride up around his balls, before answering with a shrug "She doesn't think he's a jackass"

"Why did they break up?" Mickey huffs out a short sigh, scratches his head like he's not sure whether to answer or tell Jack to shut up,

"Mandy hit his ex with a car"

"Why did -"

"Jesus!" Mickey exclaims, his eyes bugging out of his head, "this the fucking Spanish inquisition?"

He loves his son dearly, but that doesn't mean he's got time or patience for a thousand questions. Mickey blames his son's thirst for knowledge and wanting to know everything about everything on the boy's mother.

"You're fucking rude you know that?"

His attitude however, Mickey takes full credit for.

"Well you had to get it from somewhere" He retorts with a smirk of his very own.

With a snort, Jack takes a swig of his beer, eyes back on the TV "dickhead"

Mickey just laughs and turns the TV up louder.

His shoulders ache and his wrists keep cracking every time he moves them and all he wants is a nice bath and to climb into bed. He'd had the worst day at work. Mrs. Cranson had been in again, complaining about constant cramp in her leg and asking for his number as she flashed him her pink, satin panties. He found it funny the first time, kind of awkward the second time and now, her seventh visit in two months, he just feels plain uncomfortable.

He came back from lunch to find his first patient of the afternoon, Mr. Rogers, pissing all over his office. Mr. Rogers may have a few screws loose up top so Ian couldn't really get mad at him, but that doesn't change the fact that it was still left to him to clean up his office. And he still had to sit in a hot, stuffy, urine scented room for the rest of the day.

The squeak of the front door as it opens is a welcome noise; the muted click as it closes shut behind him is enough for Ian's mind to relax. His shoulders hunch forward with tiredness and his eyes feel dry, heavy with the need to sleep as he throws his bag onto the couch, walking through to the kitchen, where he finds Joe leant against the stove, his back to him as he stirs something that smells heavily of curry sauce and garlic.

He screws up his nose, the only noise of his presence being the scrape of his shoes as he drags his feet along the floor, lifting them from the ground proving to be too much of an effort. Before Joe's head can turn towards him, Ian is standing behind him, body pressing comfortably into his.

Ian feels more than hears as a low moan builds in Joe's throat as he rakes his teeth over the nape of his neck, his tongue flicking out to lick small kisses along the map of skin between Joe's hairline and the collar of his shirt.

Before Ian can get too into it, Joe bats his head away with his free hand,

"Stop or it'll spoil"

With a snort, Ian takes a small step back, his hands snaking under Joe's shirt, resting on his hips as Joe finally twists his head to face him, "taste this"

Leaning into the spoon now held out towards his face over Joe's shoulder, Ian grimaces as the smell fills his senses, stronger than before. He chews at the mouthful, sauce coating his tongue, thick and sticky and Ian twists his head to wipe his mouth on the shoulder of his shirt before leaning in to peck Joe on the lips,

"That tastes like shit"

Joe sighs, his eyes rolling towards the ceiling and the lines on his forehead crinkling up. Ian doesn't even get the urge to trace them with his finger, "But it's getting better right?"

"Loads better" Ian agrees and steps away from the stove and away from Joe and the strong smell of the dinner,

"You have fun massaging all the old ladies today?" Joe asks, turning back to stir the mess of red sauce, adding in a dash of salt and missing Ian's glare,

"Physio isn't about massaging" Ian sighs, staring at his boyfriend's back for a moment before opening the fridge and pulling out a carton of juice. Empty. Like always. He launches it towards the bin. Misses. Like always.

"So you always say"

"What about you huh?" Ian asks, kicking playfully at Joe's ankle as he roots through the fridge, looking for something to fill up on before dinner is ready. He ignores Joe's pointed frown as he looks between Ian and the fridge, instead picking up a slice of ham and filling his mouth with it, "kissing some old guy's ass all day" he swallows and smirks at Joe who just scratches at his face with the end of the spoon he was using to stir the dinner, tutting as some of the sauce dripped onto the hob "tell me" Ian starts, trying not to smile "did you remember to use chap stick before you puckered up today?"

"I'm a PA" Joe barks and Ian sniggers, dodging the hand that flies out to hit at his stomach "not a kiss ass"

"and I'm a physio" he replies, laughter in his tone, as he dodges another jab aimed for him and kisses Joe's cheek, just a rough press of lips against skin, "not a masseuse"

"Also a smartass" Joe comments, turning back away from him, scratching at his temple and Ian just snorts, resisting the urge to run his hands through Joe's hair and mess it up. It was always the same, styled just perfectly, never a hair out of place, the color matching his tanned skin tone so closely that if Ian's eyes weren't focused he sometimes couldn't tell where his hair ended and Joe began.

Laughing at the image in his brain, Ian whips off his shirt and throws it in front of the washing machine, dragging the basket of clean laundry across the side in front of him and rummaging through it for something to wear, not noticing as Joe turns and glares at him for messing up the pile of clothes he'd just spent the last half an hour folding,

"Why've you gotta do that in here?" Joe breathes out, tiredness in his voice, "We have a bedroom, a bathroom and you choose the kitchen to get changed?"

Ian glances at him before pulling one of his old ROTC shirts over his head. It fits a little snug, comes up a little short, but with an evening of nothing but sleep ahead Ian doesn't mind too much, "Washing machine is right there, saves time"

"Big pile of clothes built up permanently in front of it too" Joe grumbles, looking down at said clothes, piled messily on the floor in front of the machine, looking out of place in the otherwise spotless kitchen,

"You going to complain about everything tonight?" Ian asks, feeling the stiffness coming back into his shoulders,

Joe glances down at his feet, folding his arms across his chest, mouth twitching and suddenly serious "are you going out again tonight?"

A flash of guilt strikes Ian like lightening and his mouth starts to form words before he walks over and kisses away the pout on Joe's lips, never quite meeting his eyes "...not tonight. All yours"

Joe, now full of smiles, pecks Ian's lips before turning back to the stove, "Good. And we get to eat my wonderful cooking too"

Ian stutters out a relieved laugh, argument avoided, and pinches playfully at Joe's hip, "I'm glad I had a big lunch"

Flashback.  
3 and a half years ago.

"Hey, how'd it go?" Mandy asks into her cell, looking down at her toes and laughing as she wiggles them. She snorts at the glare that Jack gives her, grinning down at him and scrunching her nose up and he just rolls his eyes, putting the nail brush back into the pot.

Dark purple nail polish is painted messily over one foot and she finds herself smiling fondly at the look of concentration on Jack's face, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth through his teeth as he pulls the brush back out of the pot and starts to paint the toenails of her left foot.

"Really?" she gasps mockingly and Jack once again glares at her for ruining his handiwork as she wiggles her toes, "a third date? Things are getting serious"

"Is that uncle Gallagher?" Jack asks with a smile as he splodges the brush on Mandy's big toenail, painting over the skin either side. He looks up at his aunt, eyes shining bright and youthful and Mandy has to take a second to breathe him in, her favorite person in the universe. She nods, covering the mouthpiece of the cell,

"Yeah. He says hi"

"Hi Ian!" Jack yells back, louder than he has too, lifting up onto his knees to make sure that his uncle Gallagher heard him.

"Keep your voice down Jack, your mother is sleeping" Mickey's voice booms, defeating his whole point and Jack just grumbles as his dad turns away again, back to the paperwork that was spread out across the dinner table.

"Sorry dad" Mandy raises her eyebrows pointedly at Jack when he rolls his tongue out of his mouth behind Mickey's back.

When he doesn't see the pointed look she is giving him, she nudges him with her foot and he blinks up at her for a second before grinning wickedly and Mandy feels a sudden tug in her chest. She's had eleven years to get used to the love she has for this kid that looks far too much like her brother, but sometimes it still sneaks up on her, surprising her and taking her breath away.

"Is he coming to my birthday party?" Jack asks and Mandy shakes herself out of her thoughts when she feels the nail brush sweeping coldly against the skin of her foot. She looks down at it and sees a crooked smiley face looking back up at her,

"Can he bring his new boyfriend?" She asks in a teasing voice, making sure Ian hears her and Jack pulls a face back at her, lips turned down,

"He's not going to bring me a tye-dye shirt like that other one is he?" Jack asks like the idea of that still offends him and Mandy listens to the crackle as Ian's voice fills her ear,

"Ian says he'll warn him not too"

Pausing for a beat, Jack looks up at the ceiling, face screwed up in thought before he nods, blinking, eyes wide at Mandy, "ok. He can come"

"Ay" Mickey interrupts from his seat at the table behind Mandy. Mandy glances behind her and sees the deep frown on his face, creating a 'v' in the space between his brows, his fist curled tight where it rests against his cheek, reddening the skin, "did I say it was ok?"

Jack just rolls his eyes and leans back against his ankles where they're tucked underneath his bum, "Why wouldn't it be ok?"

"Maybe I don't want some stranger turning up at your fucking birthday, you think about that?"

Mandy looks back at Jack and Jack just shrugs, looking down at the ground and tightening the already tightened lid of the nail polish, "Whatever dad, I'll just ask mom"

Trying to lighten the moment, knowing how stressed Mickey was with the garage and Cully being out of work to look after the baby, Mandy just frowns at him with pursed lips, "Yeah Mick, stop being such a spoilsport"

And it seems to work, because the 'v' between Mickey's brows loosens just a touch and his shoulders deflate slightly as he looks back down at the paperwork, "Whatever man, fuck"

**************  
Present day

"Ay pass me the stock wrench" Mickey demands as he scratches his thumb against the side of his head, leaving a trail of black oil along his temple.

It's only 10.30am and he has already finished two cars and had almost finished fixing the busted radiator on the '10 plate Ford he was currently working on when Cully decided to chuck a rag at his head and Mickey dropped a spanner and somehow damaged the fan belt and caused a whole bunch of other minor damages. Because of a spanner. Because of Cully. That fucker.  
Mickey constantly questions his decision to go into business with him.

So now he is stuck trying to fix the damn thing when he could've spent the lull between jobs fixing up his own car. Trying hard not to glare at Cully and curse him for giving him extra work to do, Mickey just huffs and mutters under his breath about how hot it is in the damn garage.

"Working toget'er for six an' a half years, you think you'd learn manners by now" Cully replies, his accent stilted and heavy. Mickey looks up at him with a tired look on his face and runs the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping away the sweat that has begun pooling at his hairline,

"Just pass me the wrench dude"

"Pendejo" Cully mutters under his breath as he hands him the wrench and Mickey just snorts out a laugh, his bad mood draining slightly at the petulant look on Cully's face, "Hey how's t'at chico o' yours?"

"Yeah, he's good man" Mickey bites the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling. He flips the wrench in his hand and blinks over at Cully, eyebrows raised "Still mouthy as fuck"

"He gets t'at from you y'know" Cully laughs as he leans against the broom in his hands and wipes his face against his tanned forearm. Mickey watches as Cully pulls his arm away and blinks at the anchor tattooed on his skin like he had forgotten it was there, before he looks back up at Mickey with a smile playing on his mustached lips "Gets everyt'ing from you. Poor kid"

"Wish everyone would stop saying that" Mickey gripes, chewing on the worn down nail of his thumb, spitting the bits that break off between his teeth on the floor to the side of him,

"Maybe you wash your mout' out, he'll wash his out" Cully jokes and Mickey purses his lips at him and flips him off before spinning the wrench around in the air, his finger hooked round the handle, and ducking his head back under the hood of the Ford,

"How's Brie and Rosie?" He asks, his voice muffled slightly and he can hear the shuffling sounds of the broom against the concrete as Cully starts up sweeping the mess he made not ten minutes before when he spilled Mickey's ashtray on the ground,

"Ahh t'ey're good" Mickey doesn't have to be looking at Cully to know that he's smiling, full of pride and warmth and the fiercest love that Mickey's ever seen. Cully loves his daughters more than anything. "Brie's talking constantly and Rosie brought a boy home for t'e first time the ot'er day" Mickey glances up at him and sees Cully lift the baseball cap off the top of his head before flattening his hair with his free hand, wiping the sweat on to the bottoms of his overalls that hung loose around his hips. He places the cap back on his head and twists it round so the rim of the cap was round the back of his head, where it always sat. Mickey remembers fondly the first couple of years that they worked together - he had teased Cully mercilessly about looking like a New Kids On The Block reject with his backwards baseball cap and the thick chain around his neck. In return Cully would always roll his eyes and tell Mickey how he's in no fit state to talk when he 'wears t'at amount o' product in his hair'. "I hate to see t'em so grown up. Gets harder t'look after them, y'know?"

"I know man" Mickey sniffs and wipes his nose against his forearm, "Jack's all into girls and shit now. Smokes too, thinks I don't know about it"

"T'at's cause he sees you smoking like a fuck'ng chimney" Mickey doesn't even try to hide his face as he rolls his eyes "Cigarrillo always at your lips like it belongs t'ere"

"Ay" Mickey stands up, looking over at the now grinning older man "do I criticize your weird as shit lunches? Cooking fish in my damn garage every day? I only smoke to cover the smell"

"You no' complain when you get to eat some" Cully retorts, crossing his hands over the tip of the broom, still grinning widely and Mickey snorts, shaking his head,

"Well your wife makes a damn good meal. Don't change the fact that it stinks"  
Mickey just manages to avoid the dishcloth that gets launched at his head and laughs as Cully goes back to muttering Spanish under his breath.

As he makes his way down the empty street, Ian debates whether or not to take off his jacket. The weather is warm and the air sticky, but his work polo shirt was thin and he gets goose bumps whenever a chill hits the air. He pictures the smug look on Joe's face that he would get if Ian admits that he should've taken his lighter jacket. Ian decides firmly that he's never, ever going to admit that.

"Yo, spaceman, you there?" Mandy's voice cuts into his thoughts and shakes him out of them and he nods into his cell before realizing she can't see him,

"Uh yeah, sorry" Ian rests his cell between his shoulder and his ear as he rolls the sleeves of his jacket up and undoing the sleeves, "Jesus, it's so humid today"

"Aircon dumbass, heard of it?"

"I'm outside dumbass, heard of it?" Ian retorts and smirks as she just huffs a breath down the phone at him, "I gotta go"

"Call me later, we'll go for drinks"

"Maybe"

"Do it! I haven't seen you in ages" She says, and he can picture the pout on her face,

Ian comes to a stop in front of a computer store, chewing on his bottom lip as he replies, "Whose fault is that?"

"Whatever. Call me later"

"Will do" He hangs up and tucks his cell in the back pocket of his jeans and walks a few more steps down the road, coming to a stop in front of the open shutter of a garage.

"'Ey Galleta"

Ian smiles at the familiar nickname and looks over at the far end of the shutter and sees Cully squinting over at him, drinking on a red bull. His forehead is slick with sweat and his grey wifebeater is stained with grease and oil, his overalls zipped up to his hips, the top half tucked loosely into the bottom half

"Hey Cully" he replies and Cully raises a hand above his head and knocks on what is visible of the shutter three times before yelling, his head tipped towards the back room of the garage,

"Ey Miguel! Your lunch date is here!"

"Shut up and get back to work, man" Mickey comes into view, slapping the rim of Cully's baseball cap and shrugging on his jacket, "Make up for your hour and a half lunch break huh?"

"I told you" Cully protests, taking a swig of his Red Bull "t'ere was an accident at home"

Mickey raises his eyebrows teasingly at Cully as he zips up his jacket "yeah accident mi culo" he says before turning and facing Ian, his eyes flicking over him. Without a word, Ian tips his head in the direction of where he just came from and Mickey flicks his cigarette to the ground and starts walking,

"t'ats not how you say it Jackass"

With a laugh, Ian waves at Cully and the two boys begin to head off, only pausing when Mickey flips Cully off.

Cully just grumbles to himself and downs the last of his red bull before yelling after them,

"You two chicas enjoy yourselves, okay?"

They stumble through the front door and fall, crashing into the coat hanger and Ian barely even registers the hook digging into his shoulder before Mickey is fisting his hands into his collar, tugging, dragging him into the living room, their mouths still attached, desperate and wanting.

Ian pulls away when they somehow make it to the couch "You sure Lana's with her boyfriend?" he asks, breathless, as Mickey tugs at the sleeves of his jacket, impatient.

"For the next two hours at least"

Ian just grins, eyes roaming over Mickey's face, his teeth pressing into his bottom lip, before he takes a breath and pulls Mickey into him, kissing him again.


	2. Chapter 2

Flashback  
Jack's 11th birthday party.  
Three and a half years ago.

Banners and balloons cover most of the walls and there is birthday confetti all over the floors and surfaces and Mickey just knew it would be left to him to clean it all up.

He swipes a bunch of confetti from the countertop and grabs himself a beer from the side. His head is hurting, pounding from the stupid playlist that Mandy has been playing on repeat all day and the group of kids are still in the back yard, screaming and talking far too loudly and Mickey just wants, more than anything, to go to bed.

It is Jack's eleventh birthday and Mickey was handling it just fine, he had even done the music for pass the parcel and laughed when Jack won a doll that Mandy had put in there as a joke.  
He'd smiled and taken pictures when Mandy handed Jack a drink with eleven straws in and he even laughed genuinely when Jack just rolled his eyes at her and demanded to know if she was going to do that every year.

It had been a long day and he had been handling it fine until Gallagher turned up with his new boyfriend. His new boyfriend, who had won Jack over immediately by giving him a brand new soccer ball. Jack had even high fived him. Mickey had bit back the urge to call his son a traitor and had instead swallowed his jealousy, turned away and busied himself grabbing a beer from the fridge, not even bothering to greet Ian or his new boyfriend.

The three of them, Jack, Joe and Ian are currently in the back yard with all of Jack's friends and Mickey watches on as Mandy joins them with her own boyfriend, stealing the ball and cheering loudly when she scores against the ten year old in goal. Mickey just rolls his eyes and runs the tap, squeezing too much washing up liquid into the bowl and not even caring when the water runs too fast and sprays his clothes.

He looks up not even a few minutes later to see Svetlana outside, yelling at Jack and holding his arms back whilst Ian's boyfriend holds the waist of another kid, the faces of both boys angry, their chests rising and falling and Mickey just smirks to himself, there's no denying that Jack is his kid.

Leaving the water to cool down, Mickey grabs his beer and goes and crashes down on the sofa, closing his eyes and trying desperately to drown out the noise that is picking up again now that the fight had been broken up.

A couple of minutes go by and Mickey almost feels relaxed again when he hears a loud huff and the creak of the leather chair as someone sits downs on the arm chair.  
He opens one eye and sees Jack, arms folded and a scowl on his face, looking at him.

Mickey opens his mouth to talk when Svetlana walks past them, behind Mickey's head, her accent thick as she grumbles about how alike father and son are. Mickey feels a smirk tug at his lips, his bad mood disappearing as he looks back at Jack,

"Why you so pissed off?" Jack asks as he folds his arms tighter across his skinny chest,

"Watch your fucking language" Mickey replies with a frown as he leans forward and picks up the beer from the coffee table,

"Hypocrite"

"You wanna get sent to your room?" he asks, eyebrows raised high on his head, bad mood back, more stubborn than before.

"You been moody all week"

Mickey pauses, taking in the upset look that has fallen on Jack's face and he feels himself sinking back against the sofa, suddenly wracked with guilt. He looks out into the back yard and sees Ian and Joe laughing in the garden. A spike of jealousy and... Something else bleeds into the guilt that was swimming in his brain and he growls under his breath, running a hand over his face before looking back at Jack,

"Just got stuff going on"

Jack nods, apparently having a staring contest with the coffee table as he confesses, "I hate birthday parties"

Mickey's eyebrows draw together, "Why'd you have one then?"

"Mom wanted me to have one" Jack shrugs, finally looking up at Mickey and his expression mirrors Mickey's own,

"You even like any of the people out there?"

Jack's lips twitch up in a smile as he looks back towards the kitchen, shrugging one shoulder "Not really. Freddie and Josh are pretty cool"

Feeling a smile pull on his own lips, Mickey nods "Well alright then. We'll take Freddie and Josh out tomorrow - go to the baseball game or something"

Jack's eyes go suddenly bright and a stab of guilt for ruining his son's day hits Mickey like a slap to the face, but Jack doesn't seem to care as he asks, excitement making his voice get higher "Can I get a hot dog?"

"Yeah"

"And a jumbo soda?"

Mickey scoffs, taking a swig of beer, "I ain't taking you to the bathroom every ten minutes"

Jack rolls his eyes dramatically and Mickey curses Ian for teaching him the stupid habit, "Shut up"

"You wanna do that?" he asks, the almost empty beer bottle clunking dully against the coffee table,

"You gonna be moody?" Jack asks, lips pursed pointedly and he looks so much like Mandy that Mickey questions why he lets these people around his son.

"No" he answers, fighting the urge to roll his own eyes as Jack just grins at him,

"Alright then"

Mickey smirks and flicks his hand towards the garden, rubbing sleep from the corner of his eye, "Go on. Get back out there - say sorry"

Jack's face fell back into a scowl and he huffs and he looks so much like Mickey's mother, dark eyebrows and high cheekbones that Mickey has to blink and look away, questioning how one person can remind him of so many people "I don't wanna say sorry"

"Do it!" Mickey orders and Jack stands up with a growl under his breath, glaring at his dad before stalking out back towards the garden.

Mickey looks after him as he goes, his eyes landing on Joe and Ian and he stares, just for a minute, before grabbing his almost empty beer off the table and skulking upstairs for the rest of the day.

*********  
Present day

Resting his head back against the cold bricks that made up the sloped wall of the underpass, Jack takes a long drag on his cigarette and scrunches his eyes shut. His head is pounding, a whole herd of elephants stampeding through his brain and he's 92% certain that maths is going to be the cause of his death. Not to mention his teacher Mrs Jameson totally has it in for him. Megan calls him paranoid; he calls himself smart. He doesn't have to be some kind of bullshit CSI agent to figure out that there is history between his dad and the teacher and Jack doesn't even want to know what it is, but he's seen the heated, angry looks between them and heard some of the muttered comments under Mrs Jameson's breath. Fuck going down that rabbit hole.

"Are you guys going to practice tomorrow?" Robbie asks and Jack is vaguely aware of the sound of a ball spinning in the air to the side of him before meeting Robbie's palm with a light thud. The repetitive motion and sounds eases the pounding in his head enough for him to answer,

"Duh" he sniffs, eyes still closed "Coach'll put our heads on sticks if we don't"

"Can't" Logan says from the other side of the underpass, his voice echoing around them, "Gotta look after my baby sister; I won't be able to make it. He's going to kill me"

Jack snorts and sits up, opening his eyes "Fucking will. Third one you missed this semester"

He smirks as Logan glares at him, "I'm aware"

"He'll cut you from the team if you keep it up"

Logan dips his head, goes back to ripping the tufts of weeds that are growing through the cracks in the bricks, "that makes me feel better, thanks Jack"

"No problem" Jack leans back on his elbows, face screwed up as he looks around at his friends, puffing on his cigarette, "You guys going to that stupid dance?"

"Hell yeah!" Tom grins and Jack just quirks an eyebrow at him "I wanna see how fine Megan looks"

Not even bothering to glare at him first, Jack just backhands Tom across the chest in a warning, and he tries to tune out the sound of the other guys laughing, Jack obviously giving them the reaction they were looking for,

"You not going?" Tom asks, eyeing Jack curiously with a small grin still on his face,

"Yeah" and Jack will swear that it's not a pout on his face as he answers, "Mom's making me. Says she didn't have any dances back where she grew up so I should make the most of it" He pushes himself up until his forearms are resting on his knees and he collects a wad of spit in his mouth and watches as it dangles lower and lower before dripping a wet trail down the bricks beneath his knees,

"Awww" If Megan was here she would stroke her nails along the back of Jack's neck and tease him, telling him to lower his hackles, like he's a fucking pitbull, but she's not, so instead he just flips Tom off and reminds himself that Tom is his friend and friends don't hit friends "Jacky's making his mama happy"

Quirking an eyebrow at Tom, Jack blew smoke into face as he spoke "You gon' tell her no?!"

"Fuck that" Jack almost laughs at the horrified look on Tom's face "Your mom's scary as shit"

"Not to mention she's fucking Russian" Logan adds, as if Jack had asked for his opinion. Which he didn't. "You know you'll end up with a horse's head in your bed if you piss her off"

Jack rolls his eyes and hands Tom what is left of the cigarette, "She's not in the fucking mafia, Jesus"

"She's Russian" Robbie snorts "Of course she is"

"Right?" Logan laughs and Jack starts to dig at the weeds between the bricks under his legs with a biro, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at them, "Plus your dad is fucking nuts too. Remember when he beat the shit out of old man Stacey?"

"Shut up" Jack kicks his leg out in Logan's direction and ignores the mocking laugh when it fails to even flick dirt anywhere near him, "Guy was a perv anyway, fucker deserved it"

"You come from twisted stock Jacky" Tom teases and Jack laughs because it's true. One eye screwed closed, Jack focuses on the elephants in his head as they settle somewhere near the back of his brain and Tom pats his back reassuringly,

"Ha" Robbie hiccups, "I dare you to say that to his dad's face"

"Rather his dad than his mom" Logan meets Jack's eyes and Jack knows exactly where this conversation is going to go, the same way it always goes and Jack seriously regrets ever being friends with these guys. Total assholes.

"Mom's pretty hot though, right?" Robbie splutters out a laugh around his cigarette as Jack glares at him and then Tom is by his other side, laughing

"Total MILF!"

Jack twists his head round to Tom and then back around between Robbie and Logan, glaring at them even as they laugh before he just shrugs and flips them all off.

The laughter dies off and a calm settles over them as they all sit in a puddle of their own thoughts, lost in their own minds. Jack will swear blind he's not plotting how to dispose of their bodies. He's definitely not thinking about the shovels that his dad keeps in the shed and the soft, easily diggable patch of grass at the bottom of his back yard.

"I'm thinking of asking Rachel to the dance" Logan admits, his voice quiet as he plucks up the courage to look across at his friends,

"Yeah?" Jack asks, grateful for the change in subject,

"Yeah man" Logan is trying not to smile and Jack doesn't know whether to roll his eyes at him for being such a sap, or clap him on the shoulder for finally having the balls to do something about his crush, "Think she'll say yeah?"

Instead, Jack just snorts, twisting a stick between his palms until it snaps in two, "Fuck no, man" he answers, chucking one half of the broken stick in Logan's direction and digging at the weeds growing from the bricks between his legs, "You got no chance"

"Hey fuck you" Logan has the cheek to sound offended, like he hadn't just been ribbing Jack moments before,

Jack huffs out a laugh, lets Logan off when he sees the genuine worry barely masked on his face, "Na man, she'll say yeah. Megan says she's been waiting for you to ask"

"She said that?"

"Jesus, look how his face lights up" Jack teases, looking between Robbie and Tom "Like I just told him Santa's on his way"

"Shut up man!" Logan kicks some dirt in Jack's direction and Jack grins and throws his half of the stick at Logan's head, who just manages to dodge it.

Before he can throw it back, a dark haired woman in high heels and a short skirt walks through the middle of them, through the underpass and all the boys are unashamedly looking at her, mouths falling open.

Tom lets out a wolf whistle and the woman turns her head and looks straight at Jack and his face flushes the brightest shade of scarlet and the words of protest, of denial that it was him choke in his throat and he glows redder as the woman smiles at him before turning the corner.

Jack glares at a now laughing Tom and backhands him in the chest again and he only feels slightly better when Tom winces,

"Fucker! That one hurt!"

Jack just stands up, dusting himself off, his face still too hot from embarrassment, "I gotta get going. Meeting Megan"

The boys catcall and wolf whistle and Jack once again questions why he is friends with these dickheads, "Fuck you, we're studying for the math test next week"

"Oh" Robbie laughs, the cigarette held in front of his mouth, "that's what the kids are calling it now, huh?"

Jack raises his eyebrows pointedly, "Shut the fuck up man or I'll tell these guys about what happened at-"

"Shut up!"

Jack laughs and swings his backpack onto his shoulder, stealing the last of Tom's cigarette, puffing on it as he walks up the path, "that's what I thought"

************  
"How much is a new radiator gonna set me back?" Lip asks as he relaxes back into his seat, propping his feet up on the coffee table,

"Call Dempsie at the junkyard, give him my name" Mickey replies as he chucks a business card onto the table by Lip's feet "Give it you for next to nothing"

"Sweet man. Thanks" Lip says, reaching over and picking up the card. Ian, Mickey and Lip are sat drinking beers in the Gallagher living room. They had spent the afternoon playing X-box games and drinking. Mickey had looked over Lip's busted truck and replaced the tires and changed his oil in exchange for free beer and a bag of weed and had pretended not to notice the knowing look on Lip's face whenever Mickey and Ian stood too close together.

"No problem" he answers, "Just don't fuck up those new tires by ragging that trash can you call a car around, alright?"

Lip scoffs, even looks offended, his mouth twisting down behind the cigarette perched in his lips, "It's a decent car man, gets me around"

"It's a heap of shit"

Lip laughs then, short and genuine, "says the guy that drives a hundred year old car, right?"

"And is building up a 65 mustang from scratch" Mickey points out, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table beside Lip's,

"You've been saying that for years. No one's ever seen it"

"I've seen it" Ian offers, half hidden by a cloud of smoke. He leans forward and stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray, eyebrows lifted as he looks over at Lip, "no engine, no nothing"

"Started out as nothing" Mickey argues, his feet dropping to the floor "Got the whole frame built up and the custom tires put in on my own time in two years. You know how much one of those engines costs? Fuck you"

Lip laughs as he leans forward, stubbing out his own cigarette. Mickey chews on his thumb nail and pretends not to see Ian looking at him out the corner of his eye "when do you reckon you can get that thing up and running?"

"Not for a while" Mickey admits, wiping his now wet thumb along the fabric of his black jacket, "Hoping to get it fixed up by Jack's graduation. He wants to go to Florida or some shit"

"You better take me, bitch" Mandy says, jabbing at his thigh with her foot. Mickey flips her off before downing the last dregs of his beer and standing up, shrugging his jacket into place,

"If you're lucky, dipshit" He flicks a business card toward her and she dodges it before screwing her face up at him. He belches and scratches at the back of his head "I gotta go, taking Jack out"

"Where you taking him?" Ian asks, settling back against the couch with his beer,

Mickey half turns his body to face him but won't quite meet his eyes and he's not really sure why, except that he's super aware of Lip's presence in the room "He's gotta get a suit or some shit for this dance thing, I don't know. Lana sorted it"

"Well ain't you just a regular soccer mom" Lip jokes and breaks out into a smile when Mickey gives him a raised middle finger and a cocked eyebrow in return

"Want me to come?" Mandy asks and Mickey rubs his thumb along his bottom lip, nodding.

"Can't trust that you won't let him go in a pair of dirty sweats" she teases, only half-joking, as she leans over and kisses Lip goodbye.

She moves over to the couch and picks up her jacket, ruffling at Ian's hair before the two siblings make a move towards the front door.

Flashback to 2 and a half years ago.

"Shut up" Ian breathes out, scratching at his face as he buries a smile in the rim of his beer bottle, "I haven't answered him yet"

"Well maybe you should. Joe's a total hottie, he'll get snatched up soon if you leave him hanging" Mandy flicks her eyes over Ian with a teasing smile.

Before Mickey can question what the fuck they're going on about, Mandy's phone vibrates loudly on the table. She doesn't even try to suppress a grin as she reads the text, already pulling on her leather jacket and standing up, "Whatever. I gotta go"

"Date with the mystery man?" Ian asks and he looks so genuinely curious that Mickey rolls his eyes,

"Maybe" Mandy screws her face up at Ian, looking like his baby sister again and not the grown up beautician who has taken her place. She squeezes Ian's shoulder, "Call me later when you've answered him"

"Yeah, yeah" Ian answers and twists his head to watch her as she walks out the door of The Alibi, like she needs a guard dog or something.

"What'd she mean, taking things further? Didn't ask you to marry him did he?" Mickey asks into his pint glass as he takes a large gulp,

Ian snorts at him and scratches at the tip of his ear, not quite looking in Mickey's direction when he admits "No. He just... he asked me to move in with him"

Mickey raises his eyebrows indifferently. He gets the answer that he expects. He even expects the blush painting over Ian's cheeks. But what he doesn't expect is the feeling like Ian has just punched a hole straight through his stomach and is currently twisting his insides, curling them through his fingers and tugging at them, waiting for them to fall out. He doesn't expect the jealousy he thought he had buried over the last year to stab at his skin like needles, thousands of them poking through his skin the wrong way, pushing out rather than going in.

He hides his face behind his pint glass, swallowing gulps of his beer until he gains his composure and is able to pull his face into its usual blank expression, "Gotta go"

Ian frowns up at him, throws the beer mat he's playing with on to the table, "Wha-why? I thought you were free all afternoon?"

Mickey shrugs and wipes the back of his hand along his mouth "And now I'm not"

He walks off before Ian can say anything back, is outside and lighting up a cigarette, focusing on his breathing as his heart beat too fast in his chest. He tries to tune out Ian's footsteps behind him, hates that he still recognizes the heavy steps, the clomp of his boots as they scuff the ground,

"Are you..." Ian's voice breaks off and Mickey curses everything about himself when his feet stop moving at the same time he realizes Ian has stopped walking "are you pissed off?"

"About what?" he snaps, whipping round to face Ian, his eyes squinted from the smoke filling his lungs. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and breathes out the smoke,

"I don't know" Ian answers, playing awkwardly with the skin of his elbow "me and Joe?"

"Why would I be pissed off about that?" Mickey asks flatly, the cigarette burning down between his lips as he turns back around and continues walking down the block

"You tell me" Ian replies, his voice louder as he follows behind Mickey, "you're the one that suddenly got all pissed off cause I..."

"You know what Gallagher?" Mickey stops again and turns to face him, "Just move in with him, it's none of my fucking business"

Ian steps backwards, face screwed up in confusion and anger "Maybe I will"

"Fine" Mickey bit out, fighting the urge to chew on his own tongue as self-hatred curled up like a ball in his stomach, "Whatever"

Ignoring the look on Ian's face, Mickey throws his cigarette to the ground and walks off.

************  
Present day

"What the hell is wrong with a shirt and jeans? it's a school dance not a fucking court case" Jack huffs, ripping off the blue bow tie that his aunt Mandy picked out for him. Mandy had dragged them to three different stores already, making him try on pants and shirts of all different colors and she had even tried to convince him to let her pluck his eyebrows.

Currently, he is standing in the middle of the changing rooms wearing a white shirt with frills all down the front, a baby blue - baby blue - bow tie and a dark purple blazer that Mandy keeps trying to convince him is black. He is not impressed.

"Your mom wants you wearing a suit" His dad replies from where he's slouched on a chair in the corner, eyes glazed over with boredom and looking like he would rather be anywhere else. Jack doesn't blame him in the slightest.

"Don't care" He retorts petulantly, glaring at the bow tie in his hand,

"You wanna argue it out with her?" his dad asks, eyebrows raised and Jack glances over at him before sighing, his shoulders deflating as all the energy left his body,

"...fine" he snaps, "I don't even wanna go to the stupid dance. Now I gotta look like a damn penguin too? Stupid" he mutters, flapping the bow tie around as he lifts his arm, showing off the ridiculous outfit he's wearing,

"Quit complaining and try on the other shirt"

"What about" Mandy starts, pulling a pin striped blazer from its hanger. Jack immediately shakes his head "A shirt, black jeans and blazer, no tie?" she suggests, rolling her eyes as she re-hung the blazer and put it back in place

Jack shrugs, "Anything's better than this heap o' shit"

His dad snorts at him and Jack clenches his teeth together before throwing the bowtie at his face, "See? Even you think it's stupid"

His dad tips his head back and laughs loudly, throwing the bowtie back to Jack. A store worker frowns over at the three of them and Jack laughs at the matching glares the woman receives from his dad and aunt,

"You do look ridiculous in a bow tie" His dad agrees, smirking at him and Jack curls his fingers into his palm and somehow manages to not flip him off,

"Whatever" he folds his arms across his chest and huffs out a sigh. He really, truly hates his life sometimes.

"How's things going between you two?" Ian asks, taking the beer that Lip is holding out to him before settling back against the sofa,

"Was about to ask you the same thing" Lip replies, a smirk playing on his lips and Ian just shakes his head, running a tired hand over his face,

"How did we end up back here man?"

His brother laughs as he takes a swig of his beer, "you mean fucking around with two Milkovichs? Again"

"Exactly" Ian breathes out as Lip wipes his mouth,

"I don't have a clue man" he answers, looking as confused and exhausted as Ian felt "You ever going to tell Joe?"

Guilt sat uncomfortably in Ian's gut, nudging at his insides like Ian could ever forget that it's there. Two years and Ian is still aware of it, every second of the day. He feels it prickling at his skin when he looks at Joe's face, it claws its way through his veins when he looks at Jack, when Jack smiles at him like Ian is his favorite person in the world.

"...I will" he says eventually, picking at the label of his beer "I like him though, y'know?"

"Like him?" Lip repeats and Ian glances up at him,

"lo-" He growls out a breath and sits up properly, slamming his beer too hard onto the coffee table, "you know what I meant"

Lip laughs, shocked, incredulous "shit, you can't even say it"

Ian rolls his eyes, "Stop being a prick. You were still seeing Kasey when you started fucking Mandy."

Lip sucks a drop of beer into his mouth as it threatens to spill from his bottom lip, "I wasn't in a serious relationship with Kasey, I wasn't living with Kasey"

"Fuck you Lip" Ian snaps, standing up and heading towards the front door, not even stopping to grab his jacket.

"You know I'm right!" Lip calls after him, wincing as the door rattles long after Ian slams it shut.

"Can you get away next Friday?" Mickey asks between kisses as he works Ian's jacket off of his shoulders "Lana said she'd take Jack for the weekend"

"She know about me yet?" Ian asks with a small smile, his jacket dropping on to the couch. He pulls Mickey's body flush against his and breathes in Mickey's groan at the contact,

"No" Mickey answers, curling his fingers in the back of Ian's hair and pulling his face down towards his own, "Think she's got an idea"

Ian bit down on Mickey's bottom lip before kissing along his jaw and nosing at his neck, raking his teeth over a vein, "We got smarter at sneaking around"

Mickey smirks at him, breathless, as he pulls his head back, "That's 'cause it's not just me having to sneak around this time"

"I..." Ian sighs, stepping back from Mickey, the guilt waking up in his belly, this time like butterflies as it tries to bat down all the emotions Mickey was making him feel. Before Ian could say anything Mickey closes his mouth over his, stopping the words from escaping,

"Friday?"

"No" Ian shakes his head, his voice quiet, the guilt not quite dying away "Away with Joe"

"Fucking Joe" Mickey bit out, his jealousy apparently having a direct line to Ian's dick as it stirred in his pants at the sound of Mickey's voice, "cancel"

"I cancel too much stuff" Ian says between kisses and Mickey doesn't respond, just kisses him harder, dips his tongue into his mouth until Ian can feel the guilt curl in on itself, sleeping. He can deal with it later.

"Well then one more thing won't hurt" Mickey grins, biting at his lower lip before pressing into Ian, his hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down closer.

Jack is walking down the block with his soccer ball under his arm, chewing on his bottom lip. He is supposed to be at training but his mom had rushed him out of the house that morning and he had forgotten his bag. He only has twenty minutes to grab it and get back to school before O' Grady kicks his ass and makes him run suicides for a whole hour. That's already happened far too many times this season.

He throws his cigarette into a bush and breathes out a cloud of smoke, praying his mom isn't home to smell it on him. The sun bounces off the hood of a car and he lifts his hand to block out the glare. That's when he sees Laura Bateman across the street from him. She's a girl who tried to hook up with him at party earlier in the year. She's pretty, large brown eyes and pouty lips, but she also has a reputation. So he turned her down and she's never quite forgiven him.

With a smirk on his face, he winks at her and just laughs when she holds up her two middle fingers in return. He blows her a kiss with a smirk on his face, waving at her before he pushes open the gate to his house and jogs up the steps to the front door, pushing it open.

He's still laughing to himself about Laura's reaction when he stops, frozen.

"What the fuck?"


	3. Chapter 3

Mickey whips his head round at the sound of his father's voice, panic rising in his chest and he suddenly feels seventeen years old again. Except he isn't seventeen. And it isn't his father. It is his son. Mickey struggles to breathe, struggles to even see properly, his heart beating too loudly in his chest as his eyes rake over Jack's shocked face. His teeth are bared and his nostrils flared and Mickey has never seen him look so angry.

Mickey moves his mouth to talk but no words come out, just a choked sound that coughs itself out between his lips and Jack flinches at the sound.

"Jack, it's..." Ian starts, his voice sounding too loud from behind Mickey as his heartbeat pounds in his ears. Jack shakes his head, eyes hard and his lips turned down in something close to disgust. His eyes never leave Mickey's and all Mickey can see is Terry's face.

It's the same expression, the same disgust, only almost fifteen years apart.

Mickey feels bile in his throat, pinpricks of sickness at his skin and he has to force out a breath.  
He moves forward, takes a step towards Jack but Jack steps backwards, repulsed, keeping as much distance between the two of them as he can and Mickey feels his bottom lip quiver at the action before he sucks it between his teeth and bites down on it, drawing blood.

The soccer ball in Jack's hands falls to the ground and for a moment Jack looks around him, around his home, with tears shining in his eyes. His face is confused as he looks at the pictures of his family along the walls, as though he doesn't recognize anything about the place anymore.  
With that look it is not his father that Mickey sees, but his four year old son. The little boy who, when he would scrape his knee or bash his elbow, would come running into the house and look for his dad to make it all better. Except this time he isn't looking for Mickey, he is looking at Mickey.

Mickey and his guilty secret is the reason Jack has that look on his face. The thought chokes him, tightens his throat until he can't breathe. He can't even bring himself to move as Jack runs out of the house.

When the door slams shut, Mickey feels the air rush from his lungs and tears prick at his eyes.

He looks behind him and up at Ian with his eyes wide, full of alarm and panic, his mouth open like he was still trying to form words, hoping that Ian had the answers, would be able to tell him what he should do.

Not knowing what to say, Ian places his hand in the valley between Mickey's shoulder blades in an attempt to be comforting but Mickey just pulls away, flinching like he had been burnt.

Ian swallows down what that gesture means and steps away from Mickey, running a hand through his hair as the guilt uncurled in his stomach, spreading through him faster and quicker and more intense than it ever has before.

***********  
Flashback

Mickey is having the day from hell. No, scratch that - the week from hell. He has had three different customers that he had argued with and Cully had forced him to give them all a discount. So he lost money. He really hates his job sometimes.  
And on top of that Cully has been badgering him the last couple of days, constantly asking him what has gotten into him and how is Mickey supposed to answer something he didn't have the fucking answers too?

He doesn't know what's wrong with him. He's been pissed off all week, even snapping at Jack. Lana has told him off more than once and it's taking what small level of control he possesses not to lash out at someone, something, anyone.

His phone vibrates beside him, because apparently nobody got the message that he wants them all to leave him the fuck alone.

"What?" he snaps as he flips the phone open,

"Hey Mick" Mandy's voice crackles in his ear, "I won't be able to make it tonight. Apologize to Jackamole for me?"

Mickey huffs out a breath and presses his thumb and index finger into his eyes, "the fuck, why?"

"Because" she replies, in that bitchy voice of hers that she always uses when he's pissing her off. Excuse him for breathing, fuck.

"Don't be so fucking cryptic" He snaps before biting his tongue. The last thing he needs this week is a slap from his sister "What?" He forces out in as calm a tone as he could manage,

"Ian" He can practically hear the smile in her voice and decides right then that he hates her, she's just making his mood worse.

"What about him?"

"I'm helping him move his stuff"

Mickey's heart drops like a boulder down to his stomach and he can feel bile rise in the back of his throat "Wha... Why's he moving his stuff?"

"Duh" He doesn't have to see her to know that she's pursing her lips at him down the phone, in the way she always did when she was thinking that he was stupid, "Moving in with Joe, whatta ya think?"

"He..." Mickey forces out a breath and he can feel himself choking on it as it leaves him. He waits a beat before talking, not trusting his voice to work. "He's moving in with Joe?"

"Yes!" Mandy answers excitedly and he hates her for being so damn happy about it "He said yes!"

He nods even though she can't see him "...right. Ugh, ok. Well..." His brain comes up empty and his vision is blurring and he can't concentrate on anything and he can hear her sigh impatiently down the phone at him "Just, whatever man"

"So I was thinking we could reschedule to..." Her voice sounds too sharp in his ears, stabbing at him like needles and he can't take it. He doesn't even bother to hang up before he launches his phone across the room, glaring at the spot on the wall where it hits and ricochets off into a hundred pieces. He takes in a lungful of air, his breathing shaky and labored. He runs his fingers through his hair, grabbing at a clump of it, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and he can't understand at all why he still gives a shit about any of it.

*****  
Present day

"What's up with you?" Lip asks as Ian collapses down on the sofa, feeling more tired and exhausted than he had in a long time,

"Don't you have a job to be at?" He retorts and Lip huffs out a laugh at his snappy tone,

"Don't you have one?"

"Took a personal day" Ian sighs, sitting up and leaning his elbows on his forearms, dragging his hands through his hair,

"What's up?"

Ian lets out a breath and turns his head to face Lip, "I swear to God if you say I told you so I will shoot you in the leg"

Lip sits forward and offers his joint to Ian, "What's up?" he repeats, more seriously,

Ian takes a pull and goes to say something, but he doesn't know how to word it. He can't put into words the expression on Jack's face, the atmosphere in the house. He couldn't think of how to express the way Mickey's rejection afterwards cut through him like a razorblade. So he just lets out another breath and Lip raises his eyebrows at him,

"Who caught you this time? Mandy?"

Ian blinks and looks up at Lip, suddenly looking smaller and more timid than Lip ever remembers seeing him,

"Jack" he says and Lip's mouth falls open

"... Holy shit"

Ian nods numbly, his eyes closing on him as the day's events took their toll, and he chucks Lip his phone, "Call Joe. I'm staying here tonight"

********  
Flashback

"You drunk?" Ian asks with an amused smile playing on his lips, eyes narrowing as he takes in the sight of a swaying Mickey in front of him. He's packing the last of his stuff when he hears the knock at the front door and all he wants is to go to Joe's apartment and curl up in his sheets and just sleep. He is exhausted.

"Been drinking" Mickey replies, rubbing his finger across his bottom lip as he glares down at the box in Ian's arms, a beige jacket folded on top of it.

"Well uh" Ian starts, looking down into the box and fiddling awkwardly with the jacket. Mickey likes the flush of pink that covers his cheeks, likes the way his lips part as he remembers what jacket it is, whose jacket it is. "I... I was about to head over to Joe's" He glances back up at Mickey and worries the inside of his cheek with his teeth "You ok?"

Mickey just nods, scratching at his eyebrow as Ian opens the door wider, gesturing with a tip of his head for him to come in. Mickey crosses the threshold into the Gallagher house and into the living room.

He watches as Ian put the box down and curls his fingers into his palms in the way that he has always done. Mickey's seen it when Ian knocked on his door all them years ago with tears in his eyes and panic etched on his face. He's seen it when Ian was bent over him, whispering words to him to calm him down when he had a bullet in his leg.

He hates that he even remembers.

Silence sits like an old friend between them and Mickey is lost in his thoughts, not knowing why he's here or what he is even doing. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be knocking on Gallagher's door; he has no right to do that anymore. He gave up that right.

"What's going on Mick?" Ian asks, his voice low. He scratches a finger against his nose and Mickey can't bring himself to look at him as he admits, with every fiber of his being telling him not to,

"I missed you"

His stomach flips over as he hears Ian's sigh. He looks up and Ian's mouth has fallen open and his eyes are hard, guarded in a way that Mickey has never seen. Mickey wonders if he had taught him it. Ian shakes his head at Mickey and a sad smile graces his features, "We've been here before"

Mickey just shrugs, not knowing how else to respond. He collapses down onto the couch and takes a deep breath, drumming his fingers against the couch in the space between his thighs.

"Why is it you only miss me when you're drunk?" Ian asks with a disbelieving laugh as he drags a tired hand down his face,

"I don't." He replies quietly. He glances up at Ian and quickly looks away when he realizes he is looking back. He needs another beer "I miss you all the time"

Ian takes a deep breath and when Mickey finally gets the courage to look up at him, Ian's eyes are no longer guarded. They are filled with hurt and Mickey thinks that might just be worse. "I... look why don't you stay here tonight?" Ian suggests as he reaches over behind Mickey and pulls a blanket off the back of the couch, "I'll text Joe, tell him I'll be over tomorrow. Just… get some sleep Mick"

Mickey scratches at the back of his head as Ian disappears, walking up the stairs and out of sight. He just bites down on his tongue, too hard, a habit he's developed in the last few years, and lies down on the sofa.

"Is he here?" Mickey asks, his voice husky, rough from a night of drinking and Lip just rubs at his temple before stepping aside,

"Uh... Yeah man"

Mickey barges past him and Lip grabs his jacket off the hook, leaning his head into the living room and pointing at the stairs "Uh... Upstairs. Spare room"

Lip gives him some sort of look that Mickey doesn't even want to try and decipher before he leaves and closes the front door behind him.

Mickey stands staring at the door for a moment, swaying on his feet before he walks up the stairs, his feet dragging. He finds Ian standing at the foot of the bed, standing in his boxers and vest, folding his clothes.

"Mick?" Ian asks and Mickey can hear the hope in his voice as his eyes take in Mickey's presence. He grits his teeth as Ian's face lights up and a part of Mickey wants to give in, wants to tell Ian that he's hurting and that he's not okay. But then Ian tries to step nearer to him and he can't do it.

Mickey pulls away and refuses to look at Ian as his face dims with the rejection "It's your fucking fault you know that?"

Ian just blinks at him, "what is?"

"THIS! ALL OF IT!" Mickey wipes his palm across his mouth and fights back the tears that prick at his eyes "NONE of this would've happened if you..."

"If I what?" Ian asks roughly "Didn't exist? Didn't... come looking for that gun you stole all them years ago? Didn't say yes to the fucking sleepover YOU invited me too? Wasn't balls deep inside o' you when your dad came crashing through the door? WHAT?!" Mickey can feel the anger and the hurt pouring out of Ian and he took another step back, his cheeks hurting with the urge to break down.

His insides felt like glass was cutting through him with every breath. It's so much worse than before. Jack is his. Jack is the only thing he's ever gotten right and now because of this thing with Ian, this thing that consumed him and made him want more and more, everything is just fucked.

"I just... I don't know how to fucking stop" Mickey admits, seething with anger, sadness and so much hurt and confusion in his eyes. He takes in a shaky breath and looks up at Ian.

"Shower's free" Lip calls over to Mickey the following morning as he swings his feet round lazily, planting them on the carpet and rubbing at his eyes.

Mickey squints over to where Lip is standing in the kitchen and he grumbles, unintelligible and husky, as he attempts to stand up without his head spinning,

"Later Mick" Mickey raises his hand in a wave, closing his eyes, trying to drown out the noise as Lip clanks his coffee cup into the sink and bangs tunelessly on the countertops. Mickey looks over at him to tell him to knock it off but is met with glaring sunlight coming in through the now open back door.

"Fuuuck!" He groans, closing his eyes and wincing from the bright light. He chooses to ignore the sounds of Lip's laughter as he slams the door shut behind him. Prick.

****  
Ian feels as his shoulders slump, feels his face fall as he watches Mickey break down in front of him. His eyes are red-rimmed, puffy and sore looking. But it's more than that. Mickey seems fragile, smaller and emptier in a way that Ian hasn't seen in anybody before.

Not knowing what to do, he steps forward and wraps his arms around Mickey's shoulders. Mickey tries to fight it at first, shoving and hitting his palms against Ian's chest and barking at him to get off, but eventually the hands pushing at his chest soften until Mickey's fingers are curling in on themselves, gripping Ian's vest between them. Mickey turns his head into the crook of Ian's neck and Ian can feel as Mickey tries to steady and calm his breathing, the grip on his vest becoming more desperate the longer he hold on.

Ian holds on to him tighter and cups the back of his neck as he scratches his fingers comfortingly in the short strands of Mickey's hair.

The shower wakes him up, sobers his mind completely and makes him feel nothing but embarrassment and anger when memories of the previous night come back to him. He is angry with himself - angry for getting drunk and angry for letting Ian get to him. He should be over this by now. It's been eleven years since he and Ian last hooked up. It's been seven years since him and Ian had somehow become friends again. He's fine with their friendship. He's fine with what has been and gone between them. He doesn't know why he was acting like this - like some lovestruck fuckhead teenager who has been rejected and just can't accept it.

Fuck Joe and his fancy apartment, fuck Ian for making him dredge up shit that he thought he had long put to rest. He doesn't need this. Ian makes Mickey's life complicated and he doesn't need that around him again. Ian moving in with Joe is for the best. It will put space between him and Mickey and he won't be around as much. It's for the best.

He is in the middle of brushing his teeth with a random toothbrush he found under the sink when Ian walks into the bathroom. Wearing just his boxers and his hair sticking up in every direction. If God existed he better have a damn good excuse for why he was punishing Mickey so badly.

"Oh" Ian stutters out, wiping sleep from his eyes, "Uh...Sorry"

He turns to leave and Mickey should let him, but apparently his mouth didn't get that memo because it starts moving, words coming out before his brain can even register "No I... I'm sorry. Turning up here"

Ian looks at him and Mickey can see a dry crust on his chin from where he's been drooling in his sleep. "...You remember? What you said?"

Mickey drags his eyes away from the patch of drool and instead turns his head and bangs the toothbrush against the sink. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, not looking at Ian when he nods,

"You mean it?" Ian asks quietly and Mickey gets a flashback of memories from the night of their sleepover.

Ian had been teasing him about his childhood crush on Britney Spears and Mickey had thrown the remote at his head and promised to cook him a bacon sandwich for breakfast if he shut up and never mentioned it again. Ian climbed up and lowered himself over Mickey, eyes owlish and shining with happiness. Mickey had bit a chunk out of the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling, "you mean it?" Ian had asked and Mickey had rolled his eyes and pushed Ian off of the bed.

The next night after burnt bacon sandwiches and Terry and Svetlana and Ian stumbling, beaten and bloody out of his house, he had found his phone down the side of his bed. It was flashing with a new message and as the screen lit up, it showed it was from his dad, telling him he'd be home in ten. Mickey had choked back bile and unlocked the phone, planning on deleting the text and pretending that nothing had even happened. That was when he saw a picture of Britney Spears with a shaved head and clutching an umbrella as his screen saver.

He remembered running to the toilet and throwing up everything that was in his stomach until his throat was raw and his eyes were red and filled with tears.

He looks up at Ian for a moment, pulling himself out of his thoughts, and he shrugs, "does it matter?"

"Yeah" Ian replies, scratching at his arm "Yeah it kinda does"

"Why?" Mickey asks, eyebrows drawn together in a frown "You're still going to go live with your fucking boyfriend"

"And you're still going to go home to your wife and kid Mick, fuck" Ian snaps, incredulity widening his eyes,

"Then why ask?!" Mickey snaps back, baring his teeth for a second before he forces himself to take a breath, "If nothing's going to change"

"Cause I want - I need to know"

"Why?" He yells, rubbing his nose along his forearm and pulling his jacket tighter around himself,

"Because!" Ian growls out a breath and looks up at Mickey "Damnit Mick - you don't get to just come to my house in the middle of the night and tell me shit like that. Not if you didn't mean it in the first place"

And it was something about Ian's voice, so quiet and pained and the way he can't bring himself to look at him that has Mickey's gut twisting inside of him, anger piercing through him like spikes "YES! Alright, yes I meant it. Fuck. Are you happy now?! What's the fucking point - like you said nothing can change. I just… it doesn't... it just..."

His words are cut off by Ian's lips on his. It is too much teeth and biting lips but it is so familiar in a way that it shouldn't have been, not after all this time, and Mickey finds himself pulling Ian closer into him. He bangs his back against the sink and barely even registers the pain before he is pushing Ian back towards the door, pinning him against it as his tongue licks into Ian's mouth.

A minute later and Ian arches his head away from Mickey, chest heaving and breathless "We can't..."

"Fuck, forgot how good this was" Mickey breathes, not listening as his hands tangle themselves in Ian's hair as he presses himself against him. "How good you..."

Ian pulls his head back, panting, as his hands found themselves under Mickey's shirt, cold hands against warm skin, "I missed you too"

Mickey leans his forehead against Ian's and bit the inside of his cheek, barely covering his smile before he is kissing him again, his hands snaking under the waistband at the back of Ian's boxers.

Mickey had forgotten how it felt to have Ian like this, pressed against him, hard and wanting. He had forgotten everything that it made him feel and he can't get enough.

Months pass and Ian has moved in with Joe and Mickey goes back to his family night after night and they carry on. And even when the guilt and the secrets weigh down on Mickey's shoulders, choking and squeezing at his chest, even when it all feels like it is becoming too much and not enough all at the same time, he never once thinks about stopping.

"You're so lucky your mom's dead and your dad's a fucking deadbeat" Jack says, scowling at a spot on the cream carpet as he picks at the fabric of his shoes,

Megan scoffs at him, resists the urge to lob the ball she was currently bouncing off her bedroom wall at his head "And how'd you figure that?" she asks dryly, flicking her eyes over to him,

"Cause families are a piece of shit" Jack spits out, tongue darting out to lick at the corner of his mouth "Full of nothing but lies"

"Aw Jacky, always so dramatic" She teases before looking over at him. She can see the anger and confliction on his face and her eyes soften as she sits up on her bed, brown curls bouncing around her head as she turns to face him, "What happened that can be that bad?"

Jack blinks up at her from his spot on the floor, his face sullen "I don't wanna talk about it"

"Ok" Megan nods, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip, her face full of concern for a moment before she composes herself "You staying here tonight?" she asks.

Jack nods back at her and cuddles his knees as Megan sighs, pushing herself up from the bed in a tangle of long, clumsy limbs "I'll get the bed covers"

She pats his knee, squeezing it gently and her lips curve up in a small smile. He rolls his eyes at her and she pulls a face at him and jabs a finger into his side.

"Fuck off" he whines, rolling his tongue out of his mouth at her, "Get me some Sunny D too"

She purses his lips at him and he grins at her, wide and childish, "Please?"

"Fine" she huffs, jabbing him once more before running out the room.

Mickey wakes up to the sun shining brightly through the bedroom window and a dull pounding settling in between his eyebrows. He rubs a hand over his face and blinks himself awake, suddenly aware of Ian standing against the windowsill sipping a mug of coffee.

He looks over at Ian, eyes still heavy with sleep and he groans, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes, "'M'sorry"

Ian doesn't respond for a minute, just looks down into his mug before putting it down on the windowsill and folding his arms across his chest, "He'll come around. He'll be ok"

Twisting his legs round so he was sat perching over the edge of the bed, Mickey just shook his head "You saw the way he looked at me man" He runs a hand over his face before standing up and pulling on his trousers, avoiding Ian's eyes, "...going to work"

And before Ian can respond, Mickey shoves his feet into his shoes and leaves, barely remembering to grab his shirt as he goes.

Ian lets out a loud, sad sigh before picking up his coffee and taking a sip.

"Wow" Jack exclaims, voice heavy with sarcasm "Someone's wearing their fucking sass hat today"

Megan takes a bow and tips her imaginary hat to him with a huge grin on her face, "Mmm, you like?"

Jack snorts and shakes his head at her, "you're a dick"

"And you're a moody one today" she replies, walking over to the kitchen counter and lifting up the lid of the toastie maker, "tell me - should I expect this mood to drag on for a while, or...?"

Megan walks over, hot potato-ing a grilled cheese between her hands and dropping it onto the plate in front of Jack, shoving a burning finger into her mouth with a frown "man that's hot"

"No shit, dumbass" Jack says dryly, spinning the plate between his palms,

Megan scoops the plate away from Jack and holds it up in the air, away from him, "Take that back"

Jack just tuts at her and rolls his eyes away like a child that's just been told off,

"I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that"

He refuses to look at her and bites back the twitch of a smile playing on his lips. All night she has been on top form, cracking jokes and teasing him, making him laugh and smile and forget. He hates her ninety percent of the time, but truthfully – mostly only in times like this - he absolutely loves his best friend, more than anything.

"Give me the damn sandwich"

Megan pulls a corner off of the bread and pushes it into her mouth with her thumb, "It's technically not a sandwich"

Jack ran his tongue along his teeth, "It's got two slices of bread and a filling - it's a sandwich"

Megan pauses, purses her lips, "Toastie, technically"

"Whatever" Jack yawns, "Fucking forget it"

Putting the plate back down in front of Jack, Megan sits down opposite him and cups his forearm with her hand, stroking her thumb along his skin, "Jack-o, what's going on?"

Jack looks up at her and scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck, "Well - Is Megan home? I don't fancy talking to the Sass Queen today"

Megan smiles at him, big and wide, and makes a show of taking off the invisible hat atop her head and placing it down on the table next to her, "you're never one to give up on a sandwich/toastie argument. Especially not that easily" she jokes, failing at masking the concern in her voice, "What is it?"

"I..." Jack huffs, scratching at his temple with his thumb and not quite looking at Megan, "You ever find out something that was... so huge... it just completely changes the way you see someone?"

Megan frowns, biting into Jack's toastie and talking with her mouth full. Jack really doesn't know why he's friends with her. "Like the whole Barney the dinosaur being a big perv thing? That type of huge?"

"No-" Jack snorts, rolling his eyes "not quite that huge. Just..."

Taking a sip of orange juice and swallowing the food in her mouth, Megan burped into her fist before shaking her head at him, "Jack, whatever it is - does it affect your relationship with that person at all?"

"Yeah!" He shouts and she raises her eyebrows at him and he exhales noisily,

"Ok" She bows her head and took another bite out of his toastie "How?"

"Well..." Jack frowns, sits in silence with his head bowed, unable to think of answer, "I... I don't know"

"You going to tell me what it is?"

"I don't want to" he admits, quietly and definitely not pouting,

"Well this thing - this secret. Is it the actual secret that's bothering you or just the fact that it was kept hidden from you?"

Jack looks up at Megan for a moment, his eyes serious for a moment before he forces himself to un-tense. He picks up the imaginary hat from beside her and puts it back in place on top of her head, "keep the hat on. I don't like wiseass Megan today"

Megan grins at him, eyes still full of concern that she tries to cover, "Shut up and eat your damn toastie"

Jack rolls his eyes at what was left of his breakfast and bit into it, but not before muttering that it's a sandwich.

"El ratón Miguelito" Cully calls cheerily. He's laughing to himself as Mickey walks into the back office of the garage and Mickey bit down on his tongue as the sound rippled over his skin like an electric shock.

"Not in the mood Cully" He bit out and Cully's laughter dies down into a smile and he frowns at Mickey, leaning against a cabinet,

"What's wrong wit' you? You been off the last couple days"

"It's just... family stuff" Mickey replies tiredly, closing his eyes and running a hand over his eyes,

"Jack or Lana?" Cully asks and Mickey winces at his son's name, opening his eyes and looking at his partner,

"Jack" Mickey answers. He feels like he is choking, the name too big in his mouth.

Cully studies his face, mouth turned down and concern knitting his eyebrows together "You wan' t'talk about it?"

"I wanna get drunk" Mickey replies flatly, sniffing.

Reaching into the mini fridge at the side of their desk, Cully pulls out a beer and hands it to Mickey. He takes the bottle and raises his eyebrows in a thank you and Cully tips his head in a nod, "Talk t' me, man"

"I said I don't want to" Mickey snaps, pinching the bridge of his nose. He doesn't need this. He doesn't deserve Cully here, being a friend, giving him a shoulder to lean on.

"Ay, you know t'at is what friends are for, Miguel" Cully says, his voice soft and so genuine it hurts.

Almost seven years ago Cully had lost his job at a garage a few blocks over. He spent seven months unable to find work and was close to being deported when Mickey found him. They met at a bar and had ended up speaking about their lives – Cully had talked about his daughters with such love and affection and Mickey had never seen a person so open with his feelings and his emotions. Mickey had found himself talking back, telling this stranger with the broken English all about his son. They spent half the night talking and found out that they both shared an interest in cars. Mickey was sick of his boss, was looking for a partner to help run his own garage and Cully was looking for any work at all.

Four months and one close call with immigration and their business had begun.

Cully never once let Mickey forget how much it all meant to him, how much Mickey and his family meant to him. And Mickey always brushed it off, reminded Cully that it was him who had also done Mickey a favor and it was him who used to get Jack to settle down when he was on a sugar rush, destroying half the garage.

Mickey had always seen Cully's openness and his friendship as something great, something he had earned. He had found something close to a father figure in Cully and he had spent the last few years bettering himself and proving himself to not only Jack and himself, but to Cully too.

He turned to Cully with everything; he let himself be comforted by Cully's reassuring words and never ending faith in him, but now he can't do that. He can't do it because he is the one who caused all the hurt and the pain, because he's too selfish to stop something that should never have started in the first place.

Cully puts his hand on Mickey's shoulder, comforting, and Mickey feels a flare of anger lit up his insides at the undeserved touch. He grabs Cully's hand, twists it and pins Cully against the wall, his beer dropping and smashing against the ground as his elbow pushes against Cully's windpipe,

"I said I don't. Want. To. Talk. About. It"

He watches as Cully's eyes harden, his posture going stiff and his wrists cracking as he flexes them, warning. He glares at Mickey, pressing his face closer until their noses are close to butting.

At the contact Mickey blinks and his mouth falls open as he realizes what he has just done. He glances away from Cully's face and loosens his grip, stepping away, words harsh and truthful as they escape his mouth,

"I... sorry, man. Rough day"

Cully doesn't speak for a moment, just watches him with calm eyes and Mickey tries not to squirm at the knowing look "You and Galleta?" he asks quietly and Mickey whips his head up, glaring at him, defensive, ready to fight and argue, but no words come to him when he sees the concern on Cully's face. No anger, no hatred, just concern and Mickey doesn't understand it.

"Jack find out?"

He doesn't know how Cully found out about the two of them, or whether he had just long suspected. He's too tired to care. Mickey drags in a shaky breath as liquid pools in his eyes. He steps back, raking a hand through his hair, blinking rapidly, "I don't know what to do man"

He sniffs, feeling like an idiot for not being able to keep it together and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Cully just looks at him before grabbing another beer out the fridge and handing it to him.

Jack tries to focus on the rhythmic sounds of his soccer ball hitting bricks, but it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough to drown out everything in his mind. He wants to claw out the images of his dad's lips pressed against Ian's, he wanted to scrub at his mind until it was clean of the memory.  
He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand why his dad has done it. Ian. Uncle Gallagher.

The name tastes bitter in Jack's mouth and he spits on an empty crate box and kicks his ball even harder against the wall. Kev is going to come out and tell him to quit it soon. But he needs something, he needs to do something to get his mind off of his fucked up family. And what about his mom? How is she going to react? Should he tell her?

He sees a flash of red hair walk out the door of The Alibi and he grits his teeth, his heartbeat pounding in his ears and rattling his skull as Ian walks closer towards him.

"Jack..." Ian says his voice gentle and comforting and Jack wants to rip out his voice box. He's the reason for all of this. He's the reason that Jack's family is crumbling down around him. He rests his foot on top of the soccer ball that comes to a stop by his feet and he glares,

"The fuck do you want?"

Ian scratches at his head and looks around, awkward and unsure, and the last time Jack saw that look on Ian's face was when he caught him with Tiff Chambers from three blocks over, Jack's hand down the front of her pants and a cigarette between his lips. Bile rises in his throat as he remembers Ian promising to keep it all a secret – the smoking and the sex – and Jack thought he was the coolest guy ever back then, but he gets it now, gets why he did it. Ian's got even bigger secrets and Jack's were tiny in comparison.

"Look, I... about..."

"What? You and my dad?!" Jack barks and Ian's eyes go wide and he steps closer towards Jack. Jack shuffles further away from Ian and Ian stops, gestures with his hands that he won't go any closer,

"It's not what..."

"You know what? Fuck you Gallagher!" Jack snaps, spitting out the words and hating the wetness that forms in his eyes, "Fuck you!" He kicks his ball as hard as he can, aiming it towards Ian's face and he curls his hands into tight fists when Ian jerks his head and just manages to avoid it.

Jack storms past him, arching his shoulder away from Ian, purposely avoiding any contact with him and spits on the floor by Ian's feet "Fucking prick"

He picks up his ball and dribbles it all the way home picturing the pavement as Ian's face and tries hard not to think about his mom, sat at the kitchen table and waiting for their dinner to cook. He growls out a curse at his dad and at Ian and himself for ever believing that Ian was a good guy. He hates himself for loving the man that is tearing his family apart at the seams.

Unable to face going back home, back to his mother, he sits under a tree opposite his house, watching the windows, looking for evidence that it has changed, some solid proof that he hasn't just imagined the whole thing. But there is nothing. His house, at least from the outside, looks like it always does and Jack wonders to himself how everything can change so much, be so completely destroyed, and yet still look exactly the same.

An hour later and his mom finally leaves the house. He watches as she leaves, tucking her vest into her high-waisted, too short, purple skirt and applies her lipstick. A fresh blade of anger pierces through him as she smiles happily into her phone before she climbs into her car and drives away. He tucks the flip knife he was using to carve gashes into the tree under the waistband of his sock before standing up and running indoors, refusing to look anywhere near the living room.


	4. Chapter 4

Ian can feel his fingers trembling as he tries to fit his key into the lock. The key makes scratches along the metal and Ian feels slightly like a dog that knew it was going to its death. Making his way inside, he jumps as the door closes shut behind him. He looks back at it, tempted to run back and leave and not have to do any of this.

But he has to. He's lied for too long and already he's wrecking relationships and he's hurt more people than he ever wanted to. Joe deserves better and Ian swallows the voice in his mind that tells him he knew that all along anyway.

"Hey you" Joe says from where Ian can see him in the kitchen, all smiles. They're fake though. Ian knows it because he's the one that causes them. He always causes them. He stays out too much, works late too much and doesn't treat Joe how he used to. How he should.

He doesn't stop to take his shoes off and he can see Joe's eyes flicker over them before he sighs, tired of asking and the argument that always, inevitably, follows.

Ian swallows audibly and lays his keys down on the counter, his hand covering them and he doesn't kiss back as Joe's lips press against his. And he wants to, he really wants to. He wants to cradles Joe's head between his hands and pour out his apologies with his mouth and his tongue and the only way he's ever known how. But he can't. So instead he pulls back and decides to try something new, something scarier than anything he's ever tried before – words.

He takes a breath and meets Joe's curious eyes, "We need to talk"

"Where's Jacky?" He hears his mom ask, her voice deep and with the same monotone she always spoke with. He can smell the acetone of the nail polish remover, he could picture so clearly the image of her sat at the kitchen table, propping her elbows on it as she worked a cotton ball over her long, pink nails. Jack has seen it so many times growing up, the same image a thousand times over. His mother always smells of it – freshly applied nail polish. Nail polish and mint, with just a hint of the pastries she is always baking. She says her mother used to give her them every evening before bed when she was a child back in Russia; she loves them and wants Jack to love them too.

He can remember his mom and dad bickering over the pastries when he was younger. His dad would always try to pick one up as soon as they were pulled out the oven and his mom would slap his dad's arm and tell him off for it. It was one of the only times when he was young that he would see his parents talking and getting along. They never spoke, not really. When Jack was young and they'd spend hours sitting and playing with him or watching movies with him, they never sat near each other, always placing Jack between them. They'd rarely speak to each other except for heated arguments when his father was drunk and they thought Jack was asleep, and he doesn't remember a time when they touched.

In the third grade he went back to Megan's for dinner and her parents had kissed and Megan's mother sat at the table with her fingers curled against the pulse of her husband's wrist. Jack hadn't understood it then, didn't know that people in love were supposed to show affection to each other and not just their children.

That was the first time he had found cracks in his parents' relationship.

A few years later it was their anniversaries – they went uncelebrated, unmentioned. There were still no kisses, no touching, but they spoke now. Jack had asked them after the meal at Megan's why they didn't kiss and his mom had flushed and told him that kissing was not something a child should see. But Jack thought back to the kisses that his mother gave to all of her friends – a hard press of lips to the mouths of the girls she had once worked with and wide smiles, always touching, always affectionate– and once again Jack didn't understand. After Jack's questions his parents seemed to make an effort to talk to each other. It always seemed off at first, forced rather than anything else, but Jack took it anyway. Eventually the questions over the dinner table became natural and as time went by his mom even seemed curious sometimes about how his dad's day went.

Now though, as the smell of nail polish and the lingering scent of bacon fills his senses, Jack is more confused than ever. His confusion only snowballs as the conversation continues.

"He ...found out" Jack swallows down the sour taste that climbs up his throat at his dad's voice, the flash of anger that growls in his stomach. His dad sounds tired.

"Found out?" His mother asks and Jack frowns, pressing his ear through the gap in the stairs. He had a bag packed, ready to leave and stay at Megan's again earlier when his dad had come home. Jack has been hiding on the top step ever since, listening to the sounds of his dad sighing, huffing and puffing and chain smoking. His mom had arrived twenty minutes after his dad and Jack rolls his eyes so hard he's surprised they are still in his head. Because of course this is his life. Of course he would forever be stuck on the top step while his parents tip toed around each other.

"About..." Jack listens more intently as his dad pauses to drink his beer. He hears the screech of a chair as it's pulled out from the table and he hears the dull thud of his dad sitting down "about me and Ian"

Jack's face is screwed up in confusion; he grips the bannister hard enough to turn his knuckles white. The silence is scratching along his skin like claws, his thoughts threatening to drown him and he wants to scream to cover up the lack of noise.

Eventually his mom speaks and he can't work out the emotion in her voice, except she sounds kind of sad in a way that clenches at his chest. "You and that ginger boy. Always the ginger boy" she says it as though she should've known all along and Jack finds himself unable to breathe, his life tearing apart like sheets of paper around him.

"Shoulda seen his face Lana" His dad's voice is muffled, the way it always is when he buries it in the gap between his forearms as they hang off of the table, gripping his beer bottle too tightly.

"He be ok" His mom's voice is low in the way she always means to be comforting, but never quite is "He's good boy"

Jack remembers the last time he heard his parents talk like this. It was when he was really young and he found out that Santa wasn't real – his dad had broken down and confessed that Santa wasn't really creeping down the chimney (that they didn't even have anyway). Jack remembers crying and kicking over the Christmas tree and pouting – that night he overheard his mom and dad sat in the kitchen and his mom reassuring his dad that Jack was going to be ok, he was a good boy and he'd come around soon.

"Yeah" His dad replies like he believes the complete opposite of his words. The sound of a screech of a chair rings through Jack's ears as his dad stands up. He hears him pacing around the floor, hears the crash of a beer bottle as it gets dropped into the bin "Will you tell him I wanna talk to him when you see him?"

"I call Megan. See if he's there" He hears his mom release a breath, like she was hearing the same story a thousand times over and Jack begins to wonder if that's true, "I can't believe you still see Ian. That boy is too cute for you Mickey"

His mom's voice sounds almost animated and Jack's mouth drops open as he realizes that she's making jokes. About his dad's male fuck buddy. Or whatever the hell they were.

"Fuck off" his dad snorts and to Jack it's almost as though he is an outsider listening in on a private joke that only the two of them understand,

"How's it feel huh?" Mandy asks, side-eyeing Ian and swatting at his arm "Moving back home after all these years"

"Weird" Ian admits, turning his head to look up at the house he grew up in. It seems bigger now, emptier. He takes in a breath and doesn't understand why it's so weird to be coming home. He had only been gone just over two years and he spent most of his free time with Lip anyway, sat in the living room, playing the Xbox and smoking. Ian smiles at the thought, turns and looks at Mandy "It'd be pretty cool living with Lip again"

She smiles at him like she can see how happy he is despite the break up, as though a weight has been lifted, "Yeah. Word of warning - with Fiona all moved out it's all kinds of crazy"

Ian rolls his eyes dramatically and nudges his shoulder against hers, "Ugh, and I have to put up with you all the time again"

"I'm sorry, did you want me to help you carry your stuff in?" Mandy asks, pouting her lips at him and lifts up the box in her arms and shaking it as if he had somehow forgotten what they were doing. She had been at his and Joe's within ten minutes of his phone call, telling her that they had broken up and he needed help moving out.

Joe had taken it surprisingly well, as if he had been expecting it. He didn't even let Ian talk really, just cupped his hand over Ian's and slid the keys out from under Ian's palm and told him that he had the rest of the night to get his stuff out. That was it – no argument, no sad goodbyes, no 'let's be friends'. It was over. Just like that. Ian still isn't sure if that was better or worse.

Shaking away the thoughts of his love life that hung like a tangle of cobwebs in his mind, Ian just grins at Mandy and lifts one of the boxes from the back of his truck, steadying it before they begin walking towards the house.

They are cut off by Carl and Liam who bolt past them, practically falling over the gate in their haste to get in. "Hey guys can you help..." Ian's voice is cut off by Liam's, nostrils flared and breathing panicked,

"You didn't see us!" he demands, his eyes darting up the street, adrenaline and worry and excitement lighting up his whole face. He lifts the TV from a struggling Carl and waddles into the house with it, both boys disappearing as quickly as they appeared

He huffs out a laugh because of course nothing in his home ever changes. Ian looks to Mandy and she just raises her eyebrows at him. He sighs and shrugs, opening his mouth to talk, make a sarcastic comment about his well-behaved brothers, when a chubby, out of breath guy in a stained white wifebeater and red checkered boxer shorts comes to a stop in the center of the road, hands on his knees and a baseball bat gripped between his fingers and his kneecap, "You seen two guys come by here?"

Ian bites back a smirk and he can see Mandy rolling her eyes as he puts on a face of innocence, eyes owlish as he looks at the guy and asks "One with an afro? Other one carrying a TV?"

"Yeah" The guy pants, itching at his calf with his foot covered sock,

"Down the block, first left turn" Mandy says before Ian can reply. She gestures with a flick of her finger the direction that they supposedly went in and smiles at the guy, wide and so friendly that it unsettles Ian's stomach, looking out of place on Mandy's usually so composed face, "Looked like they were struggling - might catch 'em if you're lucky"

"Thanks!" The guy starts jogging, "I owe ya" he calls, his voice fading as he runs down the street and disappears around the corner.

Ian watches after him for a moment before breathing out a husk of a laugh, "home sweet home"

Jack's right butt cheek is numb from where it is perched on the very edge of the top step. His left leg is jigging up and down and his nails have been chewed down to nothing, sore and red. His dad is still pacing round in the kitchen drinking beer after beer, jumping at every noise he hears, barely responding to his mom's idle chatter. All he can smell is his mother's nail polish as she reapplies it in a careful manner, the same way an artist paints a canvas.

The more he listens to the two of them, talking and almost friendly in a way he'd never really heard them, the more he can't wrap his head around it. He feels like Alice down the rabbit hole and up is down and everything is wrong. All the things he thought he knew are the things he knows nothing about.

He hears his dad's cell phone buzz against the table and a huff of breath as he moves around the kitchen, picking up and putting away a few items before he walks down the hallway. Jack holds his breath, tucks himself tight against the bannister rail so his dad won't be able to see him and he feels a flame of anger light up in his belly as he briefly spies the back of his dad's head as he slams the front door shut behind him.

Jack sneaks down the stairs, avoids every creaky step on the way down – mastered after two years of sneak outs - and gently unclicks the door. He slips out unnoticed and runs out of the front gate, only letting out a breath once the gate is shut behind him. Looking around just in time to see his dad turn the corner, Jack rubs his tongue against the corner of his mouth before breaking out into a jog in the same direction.

He keeps a short distance between him and his dad for eight blocks, past parks that he had once begged his dad to take him to, rundown buildings that were once shops filled with toys that he had dragged his dad to and begged him to buy, a whole lifetime of memories that now seemed tainted by lies and secrets, until finally his dad stops and turns into an empty building. He follows his dad up several flights of stairs, hearing nothing but the scuttle of mice and the occasional huff of his own breath and scuff of his shoe. He pauses halfway to catch his breath and wonders how his dad is making the long walk seem so easy.

The whole walk over, his dad turned corners with ease, dodged grates and bins as if he knew the route well and as he breathlessly climbed the last few stairs, now nearing the roof of the old, long abandoned warehouse, Jack wonders why his dad has never taken him here before.

He tries to steady his breathing and keep quiet, keeps his feet still despite the nervous twitching in his legs. He peeks his head round the corner, out onto the roof and for a moment he can't see his dad. It's mostly dark, only one streetlight shining in the roof's direction. He can see parts of an old rundown, makeshift gym, weather worn and kicked around. Fragments of wood and piles of bricks set up, along with tires and mesh fencing. It's pretty impressive. He almost jumps when he sees his dad's shadow, coming from the other end of the roof. He's confused, can barely hear anything other than a murmuring of quiet voices and the rumble of car engines and drunken catcalls on the road below.

Jack pokes his head out on to the roof slightly further, crouches behind an old barrel and strains his neck until he can see and hear a little better. Anger boils underneath his skin when his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and he can see Ian, sat on a little ledge, swinging his feet like he hasn't got a care in the world. Jack presses his palms against the ground, presses down until he can feel shards of gravel break through the skin, just enough for it to hurt. Just enough to stop him from acting on his instincts and punching his way out of a situation he knew nothing about.

He needs to understand. He needs to know what the hell is going on in his family and why everything is suddenly so fucked up. Ian suddenly jumps down from the ledge and Jack holds back a growl as he moves in closer towards his dad. He presses his palms deeper against the gravel and hisses back a yelp of pain that threatens to escape from his mouth. His dad pushes Ian away and from what little Jack can see, Ian looks genuinely upset by it. Jack feels a bitter tinge of happiness settle against him at the look on Ian's face.

"I can't Ian... fuck" His dad yells out, "Gallagher" the name came out thick, broken and it sounded like it was choked out of his dad's mouth and the happiness that had previously settled against his chest now felt like it was suffocating him, turning into yet more confusion and something else that didn't feel good at all. Jack doesn't understand the emotion in his dad's voice, has never heard it before.

"No Mick you can't do this to me. Not again. Not like before"

Ian's tone is almost pleading and it takes a moment for Jack to register his words. Before he can ask himself anymore questions, his dad's head whips up and he steps further back from Ian, his hands running through his hair and he's practically on his tiptoes he's that worked up and Jack just wishes he could see his dad's face. He just wishes he could understand any of it.

"It's different this time" Ian pulls on his dad's wrist and Jack can see his dad trying to pull away but Ian seems to just tighten his grip, pleading and desperation in his voice. Jack thinks it sounds like loss. Like Ian knows he's losing something and Jack can't explain the sudden rush of sadness that runs over his skin like a harsh breeze, but it's there and it's overpowering everything else, except his confusion "you know it is!"

He hears his dad sniff and his arm seems to go limp in Ian's grip "I can't... I can't have Jack hating me too. Not him"

Hearing the weakness in his dad's voice, guilt hits Jack like a freight train at full speed and he swallows back a lump in his throat as some of his anger begins to dissolve. Growing up he always saw his dad as fearless, as a hero, as someone he desperately wanted to be like. His dad has been through a lot, has seen a lot and Jack's seen him fight men three times his size, yet this is the only time he's ever heard his dad scared, fearful and something close to broken. It's the only time that he's heard emotion in his dad's voice so strong it made his words wobble.

A snarl builds in his throat as Ian hugs his dad, but this time it isn't because it is Ian hugging him, it is because Jack wants to be the one doing it.

His dad finally responds to Ian's arms around him, his hand reaching up and holding onto Ian's bicep, his fingers digging in and gripping hard enough to bruise. The longer it goes on for, the more Mickey leans into Ian's touch, curling into him, depending on him and it becomes such a personal moment between the two of them that Jack has to look away. He feels like he's intruding on something that runs much deeper than two guys just sharing a hug and he can feel it, can feel the truth circling around his head, blowing around him like a breeze, whispering in his ear and begging to come in. He doesn't let it. He can't let it. All he knows is that he doesn't understand anything, but he feels a lot less confused.

Without even trying to be quiet, he runs down the stairs in half the time it took to climb them and he's fighting for breath by the time he's outside. He looks up at the roof, and he doesn't get it. Doesn't get any of it. Because his dad isn't gay – his dad doesn't hug other men and he doesn't get upset over things like this. He's a Milkovich. He's Jack's dad.

He blinks, lost, and scratches his hand along his hairline, looking around him, eyes wide and full of confusion.

He's running before he even knows where he's going.

All the way to Mandy's front door, Jack's mind was burning with the image of his dad and his uncle Gallagher hugging. Jack is young and he isn't experienced with very much, but he knows intimacy when he sees it. There's been such an absence of it in his house, between his parents, that he recognizes it immediately – the same way he recognizes affection. His mind won't even let him think of any other words, of the connection between the two people on the roof. His brain shuts everything out, any meaning, and all the truth behind what he saw. He can't admit it to himself, yet he's still standing here. Outside Mandy's door, on the balls of his feet and his body practically vibrating, his eyes wide and wanting, needing, to know.

"Did you know?" He demands before Mandy's even taken the chain off the door, his hands bracing either side of the doorframe as she finally pulls it open "about my dad and that..." Jack bit down on his tongue, trying to suppress the feeling pooling in his stomach "and uncle Gallagher"

"Ah" His aunt Mandy breathes out, her voice tired as she turns her head away from Jack and opens the door wider "I've been waiting for this"

Jack takes a step back, his eyebrows drawn in confusion "Wh-"

He looks at her, eyebrows knitting together and his eyes bugging wide, waiting for an answer but she just sucks in her cheeks and tips her head inside "Come on, come in"

"You knew?!" He asks as anger once again spreads through him like a river set to burst. He steps into the house and into the living room and tries hard not to look at the pictures of Ian, of him and his dad that litters the walls all around him, "you fucking knew?"

His aunt just shrugs, takes in his reaction and he watches as her mouth tightens with the anger radiating from him "Of course I know" she admits, her voice clipped, "Even your mom knows" she tilts her head at him as if though that is supposed to make everything better and less confusing,

"Why?!" his voice comes out high pitched, nothing more than a confused squeak, his heart thumping against his chest and his fingernails cutting half-moons into the skin of his palm, "Why doesn't she give a shit?"

"Because-"Mandy chews on her bottom lip and folds her arms and he wants to shake her, make her tell him everything and make everything better, like she used to when he was a kid and was convinced that there was a monster under his bed, "look, it's complicated okay?"

"Then .it" He snaps. He's tired, his whole body sags with exhaustion and he's sick of complications and confusion and all the lies, "Tell me" he pleads and he sees the tightness around his aunt's lips loosen just a fraction,

"You really wanna know about all of that?" She raises her eyebrows, "That's... Your dad's sex life" she shrugs, as if things are that simple and Jack can feel bile in his throat, his nerves setting on fire inside of him,

"It's more than that" he admits, reluctant, through clenched teeth, finally allowing the truth to settle inside of him, too large and uncomfortable, hanging tight around his neck like an ill-fitting sweater "It's…"

His aunt shrugs and her eyebrows knit together, eyes raking over Jack like she feels sorry for him. Anger spikes through him and he can feel tears prick at his eyes and he hates everything, "...yeah I guess it is"

"So what the fuck is it?!" he yells, spit flying out of his mouth. He sees Mandy flinch and he hates himself for causing it, but he can't stand the feeling running through him. He feels like a kitten trying to cage a lion and he's coming apart at the seams,

"I don't" Mandy lets out a breath and runs her hands over her upper arms, comforting herself "...know the ins and outs, ok?" she sniffs and looks up at him, eyes wide and honest "I just know that Ian and Mick were... a thing, years ago. Then some bad stuff happened"

"What bad stuff?" Jack asks, quietly, his legs jigging up and down, up and down, restless,

"Jack I can't"

"What. Bad. Stuff?" his nostrils flare and his eyebrows draw together and Jack can sees Mandy's face twitch in the way it always does when she wants to tell him how much he looks like his father,

Her eyes trail over him and she sighs before admitting, "...Your grandpa Terry caught them"

Jack's only met his grandpa a few times, but it was enough times to know that Terry wouldn't have taken the sight of his son and another guy together too well "And what, they ended it?"

"He... he hated it" she says and her voice is laced with swallowed back anger, her top lip curling despite her attempts to appear stony-faced, "Beat the shit outta your dad. I... your mom and dad…"

"What?" Jack interrupts, "She was his beard?"

"No. I don't" Mandy cut herself off, forcibly relaxes herself and when she speaks again, Jack notices how hard it is to keep her voice from rising. "Your mother was a... friend of my dad's and ...he introduced them. They love each other"

"HE LOVES THAT FUCKING... he loves Ian"

Mandy shrugs and Jack just wants to hit something, anything. "Yeah"

"How can he love both of them?" He asks, biting out the words and all he can think of is the hug between his dad and Ian, the intimacy that he has never seen between his parents and the way Mickey clung to Ian like he needed him,

"It's different. Different kinds of…"

"Don't give me that after school special kind of bullshit" he's yelling and Mandy's eyes go wide at the venom in his voice and a part of him wants to apologize, but he's too angry to listen to it "Has my mom always known?" he asks after taking a moment to collect himself,

"About Ian? Yeah"

Jack looks at her, takes in the flush of her cheeks, the way she won't quite meet his eyes, "What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm telling you everything I know. Your dad and your mom have an understanding ok?" her voice is low, unsteady and she says that like it's supposed to be comforting.

"Well what so she stays at home while he goes and fucks other..." Jack is gesturing wildly and he doesn't know what he's done but suddenly his aunt is glaring at him, her lips turn up in a scowl and she folds her arms, steps close to him and he finds himself intimidated by her, almost afraid of her and wanting to curl away from her

"Say it"

Jack frowns, his mouth forming words for a moment before he asks "what?"

"Is that what you have a problem with?" Mandy asks, anger making her voice rise "That your dad is gay?"

She says the words harsh and cold and with a sneer and Jack stutters over the lump in his throat, "What?" The set to her lips is almost feral and her eyes are dark with anger and he's never felt anger from her directed at him before and he thinks he finally understands why his dad hates dealing with a pissed off Mandy. "I..."

"Your dad, my brother, has had enough people hating him because of what he is" her eyes glaze over with tears and Jack can see years of repressed feelings bubbling at the surface of Mandy's skin, showing in the sudden lines of worry and anger and sadness that form on the skin on her face "He hates himself for it. He doesn't need it from you too"

"THAT'S NOT IT!" Jack yells, tears forming in his eyes. He suddenly feels like he is barely keeping his head above surface as everything about the situation threatens to drown him. The truth, the emotions, the history that he's not being told. He steadies himself with a breath and sniffs loudly, avoiding Mandy's angry eyes "I... I just...He lied to me" he hates the broken sound of his voice, hates how pathetic he sounds, but he knows that, boiled down, that's the truth of it all.

The sudden show of emotion disappears from Mandy's face as quickly as it comes and it's in place is the usual blank expression, the only flicker of emotion is the sneer in her lip as she spoke "he lied to you about Santa Claus too, you got over that"

"This isn't exactly in the same league, is it?"

Mandy's voice is quiet, empty and she unfolds her arms and he tries not to flinch, though he doesn't even understand why he would "It's his personal business Jack, it's none of yours"

"It is! It is my business! He fucking lied to me since I was a kid. About everything"

"So what, you're just going to turn your back on him? After everything he has done for you?!"

Jack opens his mouth but no words form. He slouches down against the sofa, quiet, thoughtful.

He doesn't remember seeing Mandy move but all of a sudden she's crouching beside him, handing him a beer and running her fingers through his hair like he is four years old all over again. He looks at her and can feel the tears sting at his eyes again,

"Look" she says and he glances up at her, feeling small and childlike under the touch of her hand, "your dad loves you alright? He's an asshole and he may not show it often, but he does. You've never had to doubt that, right?"

"No" he mutters, picking at the label of his beer,

"And you've never seen your parent's unhappy, right?" she asks and he can hear the forced cheeriness in her tone,

"...When I was a kid" he admits, unsure why he did "They'd fight for hours. Dad was drunk a lot. When they thought I was asleep"

"You remember that?" Mandy asks him, her lips pursed, her voice somehow both sad and comforting,

"Not really. Just bits"

She sniffs and he looks down at the bottle, ripping the label off completely, feeling uncomfortable under her gaze, "Remember when that stopped?"

He looks back up at Mandy, trying not to think about the meaning behind his answer "...when Ian showed up"

"Johnny Storm" she replies and Jack rolls his eyes, a blush filling his cheeks at the memories of his childhood fascination with flame red hair and freckles, "You idolized him too"

"That was before…" Jack shakes his head, muttering into his beer before Mandy pulls the bottle away from him and raises her eyebrow at him, "I'm just mad. I don't... I don't hate him"

"I know" she says and she sets the bottle down in his lap, covering his hands with her own "I was mad at first too. Different reasons, but I was mad"

"You and Ian are best friends" Jack states. A weight feels like it's been lifted from his chest, he feels like he can breathe and he's not even sure what's changed.

"Yeah" Mandy smiles genuinely, her eyes lit up in the way they always are when she talks about Ian, "Since we were fifteen. After I almost got your dad to kill him of course"

Jack blinks in confusion, yet another part of his family's past that he'll probably never understand, before he sniffs and looks up at his aunt with a mischievous smile, sick of arguments and fighting and half-truths and wanting nothing more than to just forget about it all, just for one night.

"He ever get mad at you when you ran over his brother's ex?"

Mandy's mouth falls open and her eyes go wide and Jack laughs loudly for a moment before it turns into a groan as Mandy slaps at his arms. He laughs again, lifting his leg, shielding himself as she piles on top of him and grabs him in a headlock, "Ya little fucker!".

"I know" Mickey's voice came out loud in the darkness, breaking through the silence that the two of them had shared since they got back to the Gallagher house. "I know it's different"

Not wasting the rare opportunity that Mickey is taking to actually talk, Ian clears his throat and twists round to face him properly, "Look I - that shit with your dad…"

"Don't"

"No" Ian argues, needing to get it out "Look - I don't like the guy, I didn't care what he thought. I never…" he pauses, waits for his heart to stop racing in his chest so much, "I never thought about the fact that you might"

"He's my dad" Mickey says, like it explains everything and Ian doesn't quite get it because Frank wasn't even as bad as Terry and Ian avoids him at all costs. He doesn't understand Mickey's loyalty to the man who made his life hell, who made him feel ashamed and unloved and guilty for being who he is. For all that he knows about the guy lying next to him – and he knows more than most – there's still so much more that he'll never get to see, or understand. So instead of arguing, Ian just shrugs as Mickey passes him a cigarette, the cherry dimly lighting up the darkness between them,

"Jack'll be okay you know?" He doesn't know why he says it and he almost regrets it, wants to take it back and swallow down the words, because he's not sure how Mickey will react. But then Mickey is looking over at him, his eyes wide and vulnerable and he looks so fragile in a way Ian has never seen and that's enough to make him continue, "You're a good dad - he knows that. He just... You're not Terry. And he's not Terry. You raised him better than that. He'll come around"

"What if he doesn't huh? What then?!" Mickey's voice is quiet and Ian doesn't know what to do so he hands him back the cigarette and curls his fingers around Mickey's wrist and rests his fingers on his pulse, relaxing slightly under the steady beat of it,

"He will"

"You reckon?"

"Yeah" Ian stresses, "Cause I know him. And I know you. And even Lana. It just..."

Mickey pulls his wrist out from Ian's grip and pushes himself up to rest his head against the wall and he looks down at Ian, his eyes guarded once again and Ian just sighs "Can we... can we just not talk about it?"

Ian nods and the two fall into silence, not speaking, just quietly passing the cigarette between them, and it should be awkward or uncomfortable, but Ian's more than used to this, he's used to years of silences between the two of them. Years of being unable to say what they needed to say, years of awkwardness and small talk that faded into silences that used to somehow scream at them. He doesn't know when the silences became comfortable again, when Ian began to not notice they were even there, when he was able to sit with Mickey and just be, like he could all those years before when they were just two lost boys trying to find something to call their own. Ian didn't know when he'd began to like the silences between them again, but he does now and he supposes that is all that matters.

"You remember when we stole that car, that mustang?" Mickey's voice was still quiet, croaky from smoking too much, but it sounded to Ian like it held a smile and it made him want to smile back,

"Ned's neighbor's car y' mean? How can I forget" Ian snorts at the memory as he pulls himself up beside Mickey, his naked chest suddenly cold as the blankets slid down to his waist, "I set him up with Ralph remember that? So he'd keep his mouth shut"

Mickey laughs around his cigarette and Ian just grins at the noise, "Ay do you reckon they lasted?"

"Doubt it"

"I bet they used to sit and compare stories" Mickey says, smirking at Ian with a glint in his eye, "Telling tales of what your dick felt like up their asses"

Ian huffs out a laugh and cringes at the thought and Mickey laughs at his expression, so Ian steals what little was left of the cigarette,

"Hey maybe if you joined it could become like a fan club, huh?" he asks, quirking his eyebrow and Mickey snorts, tucking his chin into his chest for a moment,

"Yeah, maybe we'll get Kash there. And Donkey Dick" Mickey reaches over to grab the cigarette but Ian arches his head away and fights Mickey away with his hand,

"Donk—" Ian pauses, realization hitting him and he pushes Mickey backwards as he sits back upright "How'd you know about me and Roger Spikey?"

Mickey drops his hands that were still fighting for the cigarette and he looks awkward as he shrugs, his eyes cast down "Wha- you told me"

"No I never" Ian says, nothing but certainty in his voice and Mickey curses under his breath,

"Well-what-"

"You see us or something?" Mickey lets out a breath and doesn't quite look at Ian as he scratches at his eyebrow, an embarrassed smile on his lips

"...na man, me and Spikey fooled around a few times. He told me"

"What?!" Ian yells, his voice high in disbelief, "You and Roger?!"

"Shut up" Mickey's cheeks were bright red as Ian laughs,

"Seriously? What did he say?"

"That…" Mickey sighs, scratching at his cheek before just admitting "That you were a lousy bottom and a kick ass top"

"Wha-" Ian feels his cheeks get hotter, turning red and he stutters out a laugh as Mickey glares up at the ceiling, willing his own flushed cheeks to die down "Is that why you started coming to the store?"

"Fuck you. No" Mickey shrugs and looks like a petulant teenager who's just been told off and is forced to admit that he's the one who broke the vase, "that's why I kept going back after I found out you worked there"

"So…" Ian sniffs and crosses his arms, a stupid smile on his face "when you threw that dip at me that time and told me where I could look you up - what was that, an invite?"

Mickey grins then, wide and dirty and he raises his eyebrows at Ian "Figured you'd take me up on it eventually"

"How have you never told me that before?"

Mickey rakes a hand through his hair before half climbing over Ian and reaching to grab his packet of smokes. When he settles back against the bed he sees Ian still looking at him expectantly and he just shrugs,

"Cause it's embarrassing as fuck, man"

Ian rolls his eyes and leans over, kissing Mickey and running his tongue over his bottom lip. Mickey kisses him back almost desperately and Ian smiles against Mickey's lips, thankful that he is able to make Mickey forget, at least for now.

Chapter:

"Ay Jack?" Jack swung round at the sound of his name, preparing for more arguments and fallouts, his soccer ball rolling away from him. Already today he's managed to piss off all of his friends with the exception of Megan, who is used to his shitty mood swings and just insults him right back.

Seeing who it was made Jack relax, his shoulders slumping as a large breath rushes out of him, "Hey Cully" he mutters, looking at the ground as he reaches out with his leg to get his ball,

"Jack" Beth, Cully's wife, says sweetly, lifting his chin and when he looks up at her she smiles so warmly that he feels his cheeks flush "so grown up since t' last time I see you" Rolling his eyes, Jack pulls out of her grip and pretends he's not at all embarrassed at her attention. He picks a chunk of the PVC from his ball, feeling Cully's eyes on him,

"You supposed to be at school?" Cully asks, his accent more broken than his wife's, and his tone a lot more knowing,

Whipping his heap up, Jack narrows his eyes at Cully who carries on looking completely unimpressed, "What you gon' snitch on me?"

"Ay enough o' that attitude boy" Cully warns and Jack let out a huff of breath, scratching at his face and looking back down at the ground,

"What's wrong Chico?" Beth asks then, cupping his cheek, her voice soothing and fully of worry and Jack looks anywhere but at her, ignoring the urge to cry over all the drama the last few days,

Eventually he looks up at Cully, whose worn face is stitched together with concern and Jack suddenly wishes he was still young enough to fit in the space between Cully's arms and curl into his lap and just fall asleep, just forget about everything. Instead Jack lets out a breath through his nose and twitches his mouth for a moment before asking, "I... will you send my dad to the house in a bit?"

Cully pauses for a moment and that's when Jack realizes that he knows – he knows everything. He could feel himself tense, but Cully just nods, "sure t'ing"

"Thanks" he says after a moment and Cully grins at him, looking proud and amused all at once, a look only he could really pull off

"Everything ok?" Beth asks, her eyes on Jack and Jack does everything in his power not to look back. Cully takes his wife's hand in his and Jack stares down at their entwined hands as Cully's fingers curl around his wife's small hand and squeezes it comfortingly,

"Everything's fine, mi cielo"

Beth doesn't look convinced, but Jack sees the worry slide from her face under her husband's loving gaze and Jack feels sadness in the pit of his stomach. He's never seen a look shared like that between his parents, not once. But Ian… his thoughts get knocked sideways as Beth begins to talk and he forces himself to look up at her, "Tell your father t'at I want the t'ree of you for dinner soon, si?"

"Sure Mrs. C" Jack mutters and Cully steps in front of him and smiles warmly and puts his hand on Jack's cheek, his other hand on his neck, scratching his fingers against Jack's hairline affectionately, the way he used to when Jack was younger and would stay late with him and Mickey at the garage. Jack would fight sleep for hours and, every time without fail, all Cully had to do was scratch at his hairline and Jack would relax, falling asleep in his arms. Jack felt tears prick in his eyes and found himself leaning into the touch of Cully's fingers, a childish comfort that he was now craving more than anything,

"Todo estará bien, chico"

Cully stands up then and ruffles Jack hair and Jack just nods at him before lifting his hand in a goodbye to Beth and walking off, faster as he felt the tears finally escape.

Mandy and Lip are curled up in Lip's bed, their legs and fingers tangled together and, for once, Mandy is quiet as she lies there. Lip runs the knuckles of his free hand along the skin of Mandy's arm,

"Mickey's pretty cut up about Jack"

Mandy nods into his chest, drawing circles between his pecs with the tip of her finger, "Jack's ok. Still upset, I think, but he's going to talk to Mick today"

"Yeah?" Lip asks and Mandy didn't know when Lip started to give a shit about her brother, didn't know how he knew so much, but she figured Ian had to talk to somebody while she was MIA with Jack last night, "you spoke to him?"

"Yeah - he wanted to know everything. O' course there's shit I can't tell him. Mick better be fucking thankful - done his dirty work for him"

Lip rolls his eyes and kisses Mandy's head and she smiles against his chest, tucking her face away to hide it, "you're a good aunt. And a good sister"

Mandy laughs then, angles her head so she can see him properly, "well you Gallagher's had to rub off on me one way or another"

"Oh yeah?"

She scrunches her nose up, her teeth over her bottom lip "Yeah"

Lip grins then and moves round so he's on top of her, pulling her body under his until she's laying down flat on the bed. He grins down at her and she smirks up at him "I gotta get back to work"

He lays himself over her, his lips cutting off her laugh and when he pulls back, she's looking at him with a look he hasn't seen in a long time, a look he found himself missing in the years they weren't together, "So go"

"Oh? I should go" Mandy asks, pretending to be offended as she moves under Lip, making a move to stand and he just laughs and pulls her back down,

"I didn't say now"

Her hand rests on his cheek and she kisses him and he smiles into it, loving how perfectly their mouths and bodies fit together.

It's been a long, shitty day at work and Mickey is tired after having to put on smiles for Beth and the girls who had decided that today was the perfect day for a visit. His arms were aching and his eyes were stinging from lack of sleep and all he wants to do is drink until he blacks out and can pretend that this shit isn't happening.

He kicks open his front gate, places a cigarette between his chapped lips and when he looks up the last thing he is expecting is Jack. Sitting on the doorstep like he never even left.

But he is. He's there, he's standing up and walking over to Mickey and Mickey forgets how to breathe for a moment as Jack hugs him, doesn't even speak, just wraps his arms around him and hugs him too tightly.

It's the most personal moment that the two of them have ever shared, the most honest form of emotion without their usual sprinkling of jokes and tasteless humor and Mickey feels relieved and awkward and kind of like he wants to cry.

Jack pulls back then and laughs, his voice tight and his eyes wet "You're not gonna cry like some fucking chick flick are you?"

Mickey's words get swallowed by the sudden lump in his throat and he just shakes his head, pretending that there aren't tears visible in both their eyes,

"I don't..." Jack's expression turns serious and Mickey feels a spike of fear pierce through him, "It's not the... gay thing. I mean, it's weird but... I don't care about that" Jack looks around awkwardly, anywhere but at him and Mickey is thankful, not sure the relief that is washing over him would keep him from hugging his son again and never letting go "I just... you lied to me dad. That's not fucking right. My whole damn life, I…" Jack cuts himself off as his voice begins to rise and Mickey just nods, scratching at his bottom lip as the guilt that has been rotting away inside of him for the last couple of years rears its ugly head, "And... I... Ian? I thought he was with that guy?"

Mickey chews on his lip and just shrugs, planning to answer with the only explanation he has "it's..."

"I swear to God, if another person tells me it's complicated I'm gonna smash something"  
Jack runs a hand through his hair and scuffs his shoe against the ground as he shrugs "Just don't lie to me again"

Nodding his head, Mickey watches as Jack lets out a breath, relaxing and he looks up at him for the first time with a smirk on his lips, "So you're... like a total fag, right? Not into girls at all?"

"Ay fuck you" Mickey's voice came out choked and broken, the relief once again washing over him, not quite swallowing the guilt, and he grins wide as Jack's eyes light up like he's four years old again as Mickey claps him on the shoulder and pushes him towards the front door.

"You talked to your mom?" Mickey asks, voice lighter, more confident as he pulls out his keys and puts the right one in the lock,

"Yeah... told me about her boyfriend" Jack stops, sighs and lets out a frustrated growl as he runs a hand over his face "This is so fucked up dad"

Mickey for a moment, is tempted to break down and tell his son everything – everything he feels, has felt, the shitty years away from Gallagher and the years where they were together before and how it's not just some stupid fling. He wants to tell him about the night he walked in on Svetlana, crying and alone, telling him how tired she was of the pretense and the fighting and the unhappiness, he wants to tell Jack of the arrangement they made and how, later, they even learned to bury the past and become friends. Instead, as he kicks open the front door, he replies "I've met him"

"And?" Jack asks, walking into the house that he had run out of when the truth finally came out,

"S' cute" Mickey answers, feigning seriousness and Jack looks over at him wide-eyed and shocked and Mickey just busts out laughing as he closes the door,

"Fuck. You!" came Jack's voice, stuttering out between a laugh.

Ian is lying in bed that night, still damp from the shower and too unsettled to sleep when he receives a text:

He came home.

A smile on his face, he doesn't even bother to reply, just falls into the easiest sleep he's had for days.

"It's my dad" Jack says, throwing his ball in the air and narrowly avoiding being hit in the face as it crashes back down towards him. Fucking gravity. He's sprawled out along the foot of Megan's bed wearing his (filthy) soccer uniform and, luckily, when she opened her front door she had been too happy to see him with a smile on his face to really give him shit for tracking mud into her aunt's house.

She is curled up at the head of her bed, painting her nails when she pauses, looking up at him, "what about him? Didn't fight that fuckhead from the bar again did he?"

"Na" Jack laughs at the memory, of the idiot who had tried to touch Megan up after she had already told him no and his dad swooping in like some damn superhero to save her, knocking the guy out in a single punch. Megan laughs too and she sees him pause and take in a breath before he says "He's… He's gay"

"Oh" she replies, closing the lid on her nail varnish and holding her hand up to blow her nails dry, "Is that what you were freaking out about?"

"Was not freaking out" Jack denies, sitting up and half turning to face her, "I was…"

Megan raises her eyebrow at him and he stutters for a moment, "fine. I was freaking out. I'd just caught him kissing the guy I call my uncle, what d'you expect?"

Megan snorts out a laugh, "uncle Gallagher? Knew there was something weird there"

Jack throws the ball at her and she just manages to dodge it as it bounces off the wall, falling beside her, "You did not, shut up"

"I totally knew!" She laughs and she sees Jack visibly relax, his smile becoming more genuine at her reaction and she grins, "He's cute though, you gotta admit your dad has taste"

"Oh my god, we are NOT talking about this!" Jack covers his ears and Megan kicks her bare feet against Jack's leg, laughing even harder when his face pinches together in disgust. He hates feet.

"Hey, maybe when I stay over your house me and your dad will finally be able to talk about more than what different kinds of blades there are and me cracking jokes about how short he is" Jack's shoulders drop at her teasing and he tucks his chin into his chest and pretends to sob, "We can talk about all the boys we like, maybe we can even comp…"

"Shut up" Jack yells, rugby tackling her to the bed and covering her mouth with his hands as tears escape her eyes from laughing so hard, "shut up, shut up, shut up"


	5. Chapter 5

Mickey can feel every one of his muscles tense when Mandy and Ian walk into the bar and he's grateful that him and Jack are half hidden behind a frosted glass window because the pair of them haven't seen him yet and, thankfully, Jack hasn't noticed them either. It is his first night out with Jack since they made up and it's Jack's first time seeing Ian and he doesn't know how his son is going to react.

He glances down at his son and he watches as his eyes flicker round the room, not even flinching as a fight breaks out in the far corner. Mickey sees when Jack finally finds Mandy and Ian in the crowd, his whole body goes still and his mouth kind of goes slack for a moment. He glances up at him and Mickey just raises his eyebrows, not even sure what he's asking, but Jack just shrugs and looks down at the table for a moment and Mickey is expecting the worst as he sees his son's jaw clench together a few times before he composes himself and looks back up.

Jack and Mandy seem to have some kind of silent conversation as they look at each other and Mickey doesn't understand the looks that pass between them, can't see much past the uncomfortable look on Ian's face and the way he won't quite look at him, but then Mandy is smiling warmly at Jack and Jack is staring back down at the table as Mandy turns towards the bar and calls out for some service.

Mickey nudges at Jack's shoulder and Jack glances up at him, his mouth twitching before his tongue pokes out and rubs against the corner of his mouth. He looks over at Ian, who's got his back facing them as he stands at the bar and Mickey can't tell Jack's expression as he watches him silently. Mickey kind of wants to say something, to let Jack know that he doesn't have to do this, they can leave if he wants and can act like this didn't even happen, but he doesn't know the words to say and he doesn't even get the chance because suddenly Ian and Mandy are walking back over to the table with their hands full of drinks and Mandy looks kind of like she wants to smile as she places a coke down in front of Jack, liquid splashing over the edge and dripping down the side of the glass. Three black straws hung lifelessly over the rim of the pint glass and Mickey sees Jack smirk, his hands rubbing dry on his jeans, "What, only three straws? I'm fourteen now y'know"

Mandy grins then and Mickey sees her visibly relax, feels his own muscles unclench slightly as Jack just sticks the three straws into his mouth and sucks up a mouthful of his drink, staring down at the table like he hasn't got a care in the world.

Mickey takes Jack's distraction to finally look up at Ian and he finds Ian already looking at him, a small smile on his face, looking more content than Mickey's ever seen before. Ian's eyebrows raise in question, silently asking if he's okay and Mickey doesn't even get the chance to respond before Jack is groaning beside him, like the life of a fourteen year old boy is seriously so hard,

"You guys aren't going to be making gooey eyes at each other all night are you?"

Jack laughs then and, because obviously she was put on earth to make Mickey's life hell, Mandy joins in too. Mickey lifts his hand to cuff Jack round the back of the head, but Jack dodges it easily and laughs even louder before he forces himself to stop with a snort, looking at his dad's red face, "I'm just saying - give a guy a chance to adjust to this shit alright?" he's laughing again and Mickey is feeling too much and his head won't clear enough to make sense of any of it, but he finds himself smiling and shaking his head at his son and Jack just grins up at him cheekily, a dimple forming on one side of his mouth, looking like he's four years old and full of mischief,

Jack goes back to sipping his drink and Mickey takes a large swig of his beer, not completely hating the way Ian's foot curls around his ankle, even with the buckle on his boot digging uncomfortably against his skin. He doesn't miss the way Mandy eyes him with a smile on her lips like she knows that the two of them are playing a little game of footsie under the table and he glares at her as if she's about to say something, but she doesn't, she just turns her gaze back to Jack and asks "So who you taking to the dance?"

Jack groans like he's physically in pain and Mandy just looks at him, eyes dancing with amusement, as Jack leans forwards and blows bubbles into his drink through his straws for a moment before pulling away with a shrug,

"I told Megan I'd take her. She wants me to wear some pink tissue thing in my blazer pocket - matches her dress or some shit. It's stupid"

"You're going to look cute all dressed in pink" Mandy teases and Jack flips her off and Mickey is too damn happy to even pretend to tell him off for it,

"I've seen pictures of you at your prom" Jack says casually, crossing his arms as he chews on the tip of one of his straws, "Make jokes and I will plaster them all over my school"

Mandy pouts then, crossing her arms, unconsciously mirroring Jack's body language. She looks between Ian and Jack, her eyebrows crinkling together "I looked hot at my prom"

Jack places the straw back into his glass and his eyes flicker towards an unsmiling, wide-eyed Ian for a moment before he's grinning at Mandy like he's just eaten the last cookie and saved her none, "Not with puke all down your face you didn't"

"What? How did -Ian you said you burned those!" Mandy's eyes are wide and furious, her cheeks flamed in embarrassment and she backhands Ian in his chest and Ian just laughs, shielding himself from any more hits,

"I said I would…" he defends weakly and Mickey rolls his eyes because apparently these are the people he shares his life with now, "at some point"

Mandy is pouting now and Mickey ruffles Jack's hair and can't even deny the proud look on his face at Jack's devilish grin that he tries – and fails – to hide around the straws in his glass, "I seriously hate you"

"Na" Ian smiles at her, still not looking 100% comfortable, but getting there at least as he wraps an arm around Mandy and pulls her tight to his side, "you love me"

"I seriously don't get why sometimes" she bitches, her voice uncharacteristically fond as she leans into him, his arm going tighter around her and Mickey would deny it if anyone asks, but he loves his sister a whole lot in that moment, open and affectionate in a way she had learnt not to be many years before,

"It's my abs and my amazing personality" Ian grins and she rolls her eyes and Mickey is tempted to do the same thing, but even he can't deny that Ian's abs are pretty fucking great.

"Ay, Uncle Ian can you try and convince Kev to give me a beer?" Mickey sees Ian look at Jack almost slack jawed before a smile builds slowly on his lips and Mickey can see the love that Ian has for Jack right there in the way that he's looking at him and Mickey feels a wave of guilt splash in his stomach because until now he had never really thought how much this whole mess was affecting Ian, he was too busy worrying about himself and his family and he didn't think about all the ways that Ian was part of that family, their own private relationship aside. He didn't think about Jack and Ian's relationship and how that had been affected when the truth came out. He can see Ian visibly relax in front of him, like he'd been wound up so tight for so long, holding onto a hurt that he didn't want anyone to see, and Mickey couldn't even begin to explain the feeling he felt as he saw that hurt slowly slip away, being replaced with a smile so genuine that it caused an ache inside him.

He curls his foot tighter around Ian's, hoping Ian understands the meaning there, the apology for thinking only of himself. And of course he does, because Ian's eyes flick to Mickey for less than a second, but he's smiling and he's happy and Mickey feels Ian's foot snake up the inside of his jeans slightly, rubbing comfortingly at the small patch of skin, letting him know that he gets it and it's okay.

Mickey looks towards Jack and Jack's eyes are on him, slightly narrowed, a look on his face that Mickey can't quite read before it's replaced with a grin and a playful elbow in Mickey's ribs.

Ian twists his head back from where he was looking over at the bar and he shrugs a shoulder at Jack, "Na sorry bud, Kate is on tonight. She'll skin him alive"

Jack puts on his puppy dog eyes then and Mickey snorts because Ian has never not fallen for them. Ian scratches at his nose for a moment, still somehow looking ridiculously happy and unsure of his next move at the same time, before checking that the coast is clear and switching his own glass with Jack's, glancing back to make sure that Kate didn't see, "Don't tell"

Jack lets out a small laugh like he's won something as he pinches two of the half chewed straws back from the coke glass now placed in front of Ian and he gracelessly sucks the coke from the ends of them before dumping them in the beer glass, "secret's safe, man"

He smirks before closing his mouth around the straws and sipping quietly at his beer and Mandy purses her lips at Mickey like it's his fault that his son is a smug idiot.

Which, okay, it completely is, but he's not about to take the blame for it. At least not out loud.

END.


End file.
